The mediating role of willingness to seek help on the relationship between peer victimization and mental health outcomes

Anne Williford, Julia L. Sharp, Alex Fout, Casey Schafer, Xiaosong Shi and Debbie Isen

Children and Youth Services Review, 2021, vol. 128, issue C

Abstract: Peer victimization is a common negative experience in childhood that can result in a number of harmful consequences, including a range of mental health challenges. Consequently, adult intervention, especially for elementary school-aged children, has been identified as a key ingredient in the prevention of and intervention with acts of aggression and peer victimization. However, children are not always willing to seek help from adults at school in response to peer victimization exposure, suggesting variability in children’s responses to being targeted by peers. A potential mediating pathway may exist where victimization exposure impacts children’s willingness to seek help from adults at school, which in turn may have an impact on their adjustment, including mental health outcomes. However, little is known about the role of children’s willingness to seek help in the link between exposure and negative mental health outcomes. In the present study, we examine 1) if willingness to seek help from teachers mediates the relationship between peer victimization exposure and mental health outcomes (depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, and self-esteem); and 2) the mediation effects for boys and girls. Based on a sample of 960 3rd-5th grade students from seven elementary schools, results suggest that, while increased peer victimization was associated with lower willingness to seek help and worse mental health outcomes, meditational effects were only found for self-esteem for both boys and girls. Implications for practice in schools are discussed in terms of potential prevention and intervention practices in schools.

Keywords: Peer victimization; Mental health; Help-seeking; Elementary school; Prevention (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190740921002371
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:cysrev:v:128:y:2021:i:c:s0190740921002371

DOI: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2021.106161

Access Statistics for this article

Children and Youth Services Review is currently edited by Duncan Lindsey

More articles in Children and Youth Services Review from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().