Exploring Whether Talking With Parents, Siblings, and Friends Moderates the Association Between Peer Victimization and Adverse Psychosocial Outcomes

Cyberbullying during COVID-19 lockdowns: prevalence, predictors, and outcomes for youth

The COVID-19 pandemic posed additional challenges to the safety and well-being of young people who were forced to engage in online learning, spending more time than ever online, and cyberbullying emerged as a notable concern for parents, educators, and students. Two studies conducted online examined the prevalence, predictors, and outcomes of cyberbullying episodes during the lockdowns due to the outbreak of COVID-19 in Portugal. Study 1 (N = 485) examined the prevalence of cyberbullying among youth during the first lockdown period in 2020, focusing on predictors, symptoms of psychological distress and possible buffers of the effects of cyberbullying. Study 2 (N = 952) examined the prevalence of cyberbullying, predictors, and symptoms of psychological distress during the second lockdown period in 2021. Results revealed that most participants experienced cyberbullying, symptoms of psychological distress (e.g., sadness and loneliness) during the lockdowns were higher for those who experienced than for those who did not experience cyberbullying, and those who experienced cyberbullying with higher levels of parental and social support showed lower levels of symptoms of psychological distress (i.e., suicidal ideation). These findings contribute to the existing knowledge on online bullying among youth, specifically during COVID-19 lockdowns.

Supplementary information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12144-023-04394-7.

Dimensions of Parenting and Children's Bullying Victimization: A Look at the Racial/Ethnic and Grade Level Differences

The associations between the various dimensions of parenting and adolescent bullying have been widely studied, but it is unclear whether these associations vary by race/ethnicity and grade. The current study utilized the Health Behavior in School-Aged Children data in the United States for the investigation. The findings show that supportive parenting and permissive parenting were negatively associated with bullying victimization. However, controlling parenting and neglectful parenting were positively associated with bullying victimization. The results further revealed that the dimensions of parenting were similarly associated with bullying victimization across racial/ethnic groups. Parenting was also similarly associated with bullying victimization for both middle and high school students, except for supportive parenting, where middle school students with more parental support reported less bullying victimization. The implications of the findings are discussed.

Family Related Variables' Influences on Adolescents' Health Based on Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children Database, an AI-Assisted Scoping Review, and Narrative Synthesis

Objects

Health Behaviours in School-aged Children (HBSC) is an international survey programme aiming to investigate adolescents' health behaviours, subjective perception of health status, wellbeing, and the related contextual information. Our scoping review aimed to synthesise the evidence from HBSC about the relationship between family environmental contributors and adolescents' health-related outcomes.

Methods

We searched previous studies from six electronic databases. Two researchers identified the qualified publications independently by abstract and full-text screening with the assistance of an NLP-based AI instrument, ASReview. Publications were included if they were based on HBSC data and investigated the effects of family environment on adolescents' health outcomes. Researches addressed family-related factors as mediators or moderators were also included.

Results

A total of 241 articles were included. Family environmental contributors could be mapped into six categories: (1) Demographic backgrounds (N = 177); (2) General family's psycho-socio functions (N = 44); (3) Parenting behaviours (N = 100); (4) Parental health behaviours (N = 7); (5) Family activities (N = 24); and (6) Siblings (N = 7). Except for 75 papers that assessed family variables as moderators (N = 70) and mediators (N = 7), the others suggested family environment was an independent variable. Only five studies employed the data-driven approach.

Conclusion

Our results suggest most research studies focussed on the influences of family demographic backgrounds on adolescents' health. The researches related to parental health behaviours and siblings are most inadequate. Besides, we recommend further research studies to focus on the mediator/moderator roles of the family, for exploring the deep mechanism of the family's impacts. Also, it would be valuable to consider data-driven analysis more in the future, as HBSC has mass variables and data.

A Latent Transition Analysis of Youth Bullying Victimization Patterns over Time and Their Relations to Delinquency

Peer victimization patterns from elementary school transitioning into late middle school have not been assessed in detail. Even less work has considered how these patterns differ across family context and then are linked to delinquency in adolescence. This study used longitudinal data (n = 2,892) from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to examine peer victimization classification and change over six years while distinguishing across sex and family contexts. Latent transition analysis (LTA) shows that youth can be classified into minor victimization, mainly verbal victimization, and all-type victimization subgroups over time with some sex differences, regardless of whether they were in two-parent families. The majority of the youth were in either the mainly verbal victimization (53% for boys; 42% for girls) or all-type victimization (12% for boys; 21% for girls) statuses when they were about 9 years old, but substantial transition positioned most boys (84%) and girls (82%) in the minor victimization status instead when they were about 15 years old. Youth who were Hispanic, in two-parent families, and more open to parents had a reduced risk of peer victimization, but youth who were in a poor family had an increased risk of peer victimization. Peer victimization statuses were significantly associated with youth delinquency, and there were sex and time differences in the association. In year 9, 45% to 94% of boys and 24% to 75% of girls were involved in delinquency based on their victimization statuses, but the difference was 48% to 67% for boys and 39% to 59% for girls in year 15. The findings suggest developing and implementing peer victimization prevention starting from early elementary school, concurrently addressing peer victimization and delinquency, and paying close attention to sex and family context differences.

Parental stress and adolescent bullying perpetration and victimization: The mediating role of adolescent anxiety and family resilience

Although past research suggests that parental stress can heighten adolescents' risk for bullying perpetration and victimization, the mechanisms underlying such a potential link and that may involve child psychological wellbeing remain unclear. Parental stress may heighten adolescents' risk for bullying involvement by elevating adolescents' anxiety and interfering with family functioning. Therefore, the current study investigated the role of adolescent anxiety and family resilience as mediators linking parental stress with adolescent bullying involvement. Sex differences in these associations were also explored. Analyses relied on data collected from 11,244 parents who participated in the 2019 National Survey of Children's Health. Parents completed surveys assessing parental stress, adolescent anxiety, family resilience, and adolescents' involvement in bullying perpetration as well as victimization. Results from structural equation models indicated that a higher level of parental stress was related to greater bullying perpetration and victimization among both male and female adolescents. Moreover, parental stress was indirectly related to bullying victimization via elevated adolescent anxiety for both girls and boys, whereas parental stress was indirectly related to bullying perpetration via reduced family resilience for boys but not girls. The findings highlight connections between adolescents' family and peer contexts and implicate adolescent anxiety and family resilience as putative mechanisms linking parental stress and bullying involvement.

A bio-ecological framing of evidence on the determinants of adolescent mental health - A scoping review of the international Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children (HBSC) study 1983-2020

This paper extracts, organises and summarises findings on adolescent mental health from a major international population study of young people using a scoping review methodology and applying a bio-ecological framework. Population data has been collected from more than 1.5 million adolescents over 37 years by the Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children: WHO Cross-National (HBSC) Study. The paper reviews the contribution that this long standing study has made to our understanding of the individual, developmental, social, economic, cultural determinants of adolescent mental health by organising the findings of 104 empirical papers that met inclusion criteria, into individual, microsystem, mesosystem and macrosystem levels of the framework. Of these selected papers, 68 were based on national data and the other 36 were based on international data, from varying numbers of countries. Each paper was allocated to a system level in the bio-ecological framework according to the level of its primary focus. The majority (51 papers) investigate individual level determinants. A further 28 concentrate primarily on the microsystem level, 6 on the mesosystem level, and 29 on the macrosystem level. The paper identifies where there is evidence on the determinants of mental health, summarises what we have learned, and highlights research gaps. Implications for the future development of this population health study are discussed in terms of how it may continue to illuminate our understanding of adolescent mental health in a changing world and where new directions are required.