Joakim Wahlström, Bitte Modin, Johan Svensson, Petra Löfstedt, Sara Brolin Låftman,
There’s a tear in my beer: Bullying victimisation and young teenage drinking in Sweden,
Children and Youth Services Review,
Volume 154,
2023,
107123,
ISSN 0190-7409,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2023.107123.
(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190740923003183)
Abstract: Victims of bullying are at an increased risk not only of developing adverse mental health, but also of engaging in health risk behaviours. One way in which adolescents may cope with the health-related consequences of bullying victimisation is through substance use such as alcohol and narcotics, as posited by the self-medication hypothesis. Indeed, previous research has found a link between traditional (face-to-face) bullying victimisation and alcohol use among adolescents, albeit with some inconsistencies. However, studies examining both traditional bullying and cyberbullying among youth often report an association only between cyberbullying victimisation and drinking. The current study seeks to add to this field of research by analysing the predictive capacity of traditional and cyberbullying victimisation for youth drinking whilst also adjusting for bullying perpetration and sociodemographic characteristics. In the analyses, we distinguished between occasional and frequent victimisation, and performed separate investigations of how specific types of traditional bullying and cyberbullying victimisation are related to youth drinking. Data were obtained from the Swedish Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) survey, with pooled cross-sectional information from 2013/14 and 2017/18 collected among 13- and 15-year-old students (n = 7126). Any alcohol use and drunkenness during the past 30 days were used as dependent variables. The respondents were categorised as non-victims, occasional victims, and frequent victims of traditional and cyberbullying, respectively. Binary logistic regression analyses were performed to examine the associations between bullying victimisation and youth drinking. The results showed that 21.2% of students reported that they had been bullied at least once or twice in the past months, either as victims of traditional bullying only (8.3%), cyberbullying only (7.8%), or both (5.1%). When both types of bullying victimisation were mutually adjusted for, only cyberbullying remained significantly associated with an increased risk of drinking. However, when specific types of face-to-face bullying victimisation were analysed, several statistically significant associations with youth drinking were found, even when controlling for cyberbullying victimisation. Associations with any alcohol use and drunkenness were overall very similar. To conclude, this study corroborates previous research which has shown youth drinking to be more consistently related with cyberbullying victimisation than with traditional bullying victimisation. The study also extends previous knowledge by showing that the association between traditional bullying victimisation and youth drinking differs depending on the operationalisation of victimisation. Future research might benefit from examining this more thoroughly. The findings highlight that interventions targeting bullying and its effects should consider both face-to-face and online victimisation.
Keywords: Bullying; Cyberbullying; Victimization; Alcohol use; Drunkenness; Adolescents