Abstract
BACKGROUND:
Traditional bullying
victimization and the growing number of cyber-teasing victims during
the last decade is a major public health concern. The objective of this
study was to examine the relationship between students' experiences of
traditional bullying victimization and cyber-teasing and the sociodemographic characteristics of a sample composed of college students in Spain.
METHODS:
In
the fall of 2014, 543 sixth-grade students from southeast Spain
completed an anonymous survey on their experience of both kinds of to
ascertain any relationship with sociodemographic characteristics,
including gender, nationality, economic problems, family conflicts and
alcohol and cannabis use.
RESULTS:
A total of 62.2 % of the students reported to having suffered traditional bullying
victimization and 52.7 % reported that they had been subject to
cyber-teasing. 40.7 % of participants had been victims of traditional bullying
victimization and cyber-teasing in the past 12 months. Most (65.7 %) of
the victims were at the same time cyber-teasing victims; 77.6 % of
cyber-teasing victims were also victimized in a different manner.
Traditional bullying
victimization was higher among boys than among girls, while female
students were more likely to have been subjected to cyber-teasing than
male students. The characteristics that most heavily influenced
suffering traditional bullying victimization were economic problems, family conflicts and cannabis use.
CONCLUSIONS:
Our findings confirm overlapping results in the risk factors that influence suffering both traditional bullying
victimization and cyber-teasing: there was a strong influence of
certain sociodemographic and individual characteristics of the college
population, suggesting that specific policies are necessary to improve
college students' environment in Spain.
