Bullying has long term detrimental effects, says study
Posted on: 08/Sep/2016 10:31:35 AM
A new study has said that childhood bullying inflicts the same long-term psychological trauma on girls as severe physical or sexual abuse, and its detrimental effects may linger for years. The study was conducted by researchers at the Dorothy Espelage at University of Illinois in the US.
Results of the study, that involved 480 college goers, showed that experiencing bullying was the strongest predictor of PTSD symptoms among the college students who participated in the survey, surpassing other types of trauma such as exposure to community violence or being abused or neglected by adults, Espelage found. Females in particular struggled with the emotional damage inflicted by bullying, reporting significantly greater levels of depression, anxiety and PTSD than their male peers.
According to the researchers, Bullying victimisation significantly predicted students` current levels of depression and anxiety - over and above other childhood victimisation experiences. This research suggests that college students` psychological distress may be connected in part to their perceptions of past childhood bullying victimisation experiences. Students who experienced one interpersonal trauma were at the greatest risk of being victimised in other ways and of developing PTSD. We suggest that practitioners in college mental health centres need to be aware that students who request psychological help are likely to have experienced multiple forms of trauma that need to be assessed. Practitioners should routinely collect information about the various types of trauma students may have experienced to identify those people at greatest risk of experiencing PTSD.
