Children who have been bullied by their peers can suffer worse long-term mental health issues than children abused by adults, a study indicates.
Researchers at Britain's University of Warwick say they've determined bullying can adversely affect children in their later adult lives more than being maltreated does.
For the study, the researches analyzed data from two studies on abuse and bullying, one in Great Britain and one in the U.S.
While the negative consequences of any form of child mistreatment — whether it is physical abuse, sexual abuse or neglect — on a person's mental and physical health have been well-documented, the researchers intended to find out if victims of bullying faced mental health problems because they also may have experienced abuse or whether the act of being bullied was, by itself, associated with a greater risk of mental health problems.
What they found was that children bullied by their peers but not abused by family members were more likely to suffer symptoms of depression and anxiety in adulthood than children who were victims of abuse but were not bullied, the researchers reported in The Lancet Psychiatry.
Of course, children who were both abused and bullied predictably faced increased risks of mental health problems, they said.
Bullying may scar a child mentally more than being abused, the researchers suggested, because society considers child abuse a severe problem and has begun to offer support to its victims — something that has yet to happen with bullying because people see it in a different way.
"There are still people out there who think that bullying is a normal rite of passage — you go through and toughen up, etc.," says study author Dieter Wolke, a Warwick professor of psychology.
However, bullying destroys self-confidence and trust in other people and can lead to poor health and problems with jobs and families as people move into adulthood, the researchers said.
"Being bullied is not a harmless rite of passage or an inevitable part of growing up; it has serious long-term consequences," says Wolke. "Being socially excluded and being a social outcast is about the worst stress that we can experience, more than other pains."
Society has, for the most part, focused its attention on abuse and ways to deal with it, while paying much less attention to bullying, something Wolke says needs to be addressed.
"It is important for schools, health services and other agencies to work together to reduce bullying and the adverse effects related to it," he says.
Photo: Thomas Ricker | Flickr
