Youth Bullying and Suicide: Risk and Protective Factor Profiles for Bullies, Victims, Bully-Victims and the Uninvolved

Ching Kwan, Clifford Wong, Zhansheng Chen and Paul S. F. Yip
Additional contact information
Ching Kwan: HKJC Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention, Hong Kong 999077, China
Clifford Wong: HKJC Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention, Hong Kong 999077, China
Zhansheng Chen: Department of Psychology, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong 999077, China
Paul S. F. Yip: HKJC Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention, Hong Kong 999077, China

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 5, 1-20

Abstract: Bullying is closely associated with suicide. This study validates mixed evidence on whether young bullies, victims, bully-victims, and those uninvolved in bullying differ in suicidality, risk, protective factor profiles, and predictors of suicide. A total of 2004 Hong Kong adolescents and young adults completed the Hong Kong Online Survey on Youth Mental Health and Internet Usage in 2018. Bullies, victims, and bully victims, as opposed to the uninvolved, were found to possess higher tendencies of suicidal thoughts and behaviors. They had more distinct rather than overlapping risk and protective factor profiles yet shared psychological distress and diagnosis of a psychiatric disorder as common predictors of suicide. The results indicate that suicide screening assessments and training to detect common suicide predictors can benefit youngsters regardless of their bullying involvement. From the discussion, group-specific interventions include restorative justice approaches to promote reintegration and help-seeking among bullies, peer, and professional support programs geared towards lowering victim isolation and equipping gatekeepers such as teachers with skills to connect with both bullies and victims.

Keywords: suicide; adolescents; bullying; risk factors; protective factors (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/5/2828/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/5/2828/ (text/html)

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:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:5:p:2828-:d:760872

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().