Testing a path model of relationships between gender, age, and bullying victimization and violent behavior, substance abuse, depression, suicidal ideation, and suicide attempts in adolescents

Karen P. Reed, William Nugent and R. Lyle Cooper

Children and Youth Services Review, 2015, vol. 55, issue C, 128-137

Abstract: The goal of this study was to test a path model for the relationships between age, gender, traditional bullying and cyberbullying victimization, and violent behavior, substance abuse, depression, suicidal ideation and suicide attempts in adolescents. A hypothesized path model was fit to data from the 2011 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS) on a nationally representative sample of 15,425 high-school students from across the United States. Results suggested that the effects of traditional and cyberbullying victimization on suicidal thinking, suicide planning, and suicide attempts were mediated by violent behavior, substance abuse, and depression. Results also suggested reciprocal paths between substance abuse and violent behavior. There were statistically significant indirect paths from both traditional and cyberbullying victimization to suicide attempts without the involvement of depression, suicidal thinking, or suicide planning, findings suggesting a model for spontaneous, unplanned adolescent suicides. Results suggested that female adolescents who reported cyberbullying victimization also reported higher rates of depression and suicidal behaviors compared to their male counterparts, and that as adolescents got older, depression and substance abuse tended to increase, while violent behavior and suicidal thinking tended to decrease. The implications of these findings for social workers, school counselors, and others who work with adolescents are considered.

Keywords: Adolescent depression and suicide; Adolescent bullying victimization; Path model of bullying victimization to suicide; Cyberbullying (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190740915001656
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:55:y:2015:i:c:p:128-137

DOI: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2015.05.016

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 ().