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Does
bullying cause health problems?
Almost 3,000 children
(aged 7 to 10 years) were interviewed by school nurses in
London primary schools in the academic year 1992-93. It
was found that there was more chance of children having
health problems if they were being bullied. The symptoms
they mentioned included poor sleep, bed wetting, feeling
sad, headaches and stomach pains. It was also found that
as the frequency of bullying increased, so did the risk
of having these health problems.
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Article details
K Williams, M Chambers,
S Logan, D Robinson (1996) 'Association of Common Health
Symptoms with Bullying in Primary School Children', in 'British
Medical Journal', Volume 313, Issue 7048.
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Graph details
See the graph in the
above article, page 4, table 4, 'Association between reported
bullying and other health symptoms'.
In 1994, 276 pupils
in the first two years of an Australian secondary school
were involved in the first part of a survey looking at possible
links between bullying and health. In 1997, 126 senior pupils
in the school (including some who took part 3 years before)
were involved in the second part. It was found that bullying
in the lower years can have a negative effect on physical
health, both at the time and lasting into later school years.
Pupils' answers revealed that bullying also had a negative
effect on the mental health of the girls. However, this
effect on mental and physical health was not found in the
older pupils who were bullied in the upper years.
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Article details
K Rigby (1999) 'Peer
Victimisation at School and the Health of Secondary School
Students' in 'British Journal of Educational Psychology',
Volume 69, pages 95-104.
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Author details
 Ken
Rigby is an Adjunct Associate Professor of Social Psychology
and an educational consultant at the University of South
Australia. He has been involved in major studies of bullying
in Australia and has published widely on this topic. For
more information about Dr Rigby and his work see the
bullying pages here. Ken may be contacted by e-mail.
An English study involved
1,639 primary school pupils and their parents. It found
that there was a link between direct bullying (for example
hitting) and common health problems, although the link was
not as strong as that found in other studies. It did not
find a link between the social/psychological type of bullying
(for example keeping someone out of things) and health problems.
It was found that those involved in direct bullying, as
victims or as both victim and bully (victim/bully) and also
girls, were most likely to suffer from physical health problems
such as colds and coughs. Another finding was that those
involved in direct bullying as victims or victim/bully and
also year 2 children, were more likely to suffer from problems
such as anxiety about going to school and sleep problems.
According to this study, the bully was not only healthier
than the victims but also than the children who were not
directly involved.
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Article details
D Wolke, S Woods,
L Bloomfield, L Karstadt (2001) 'Bullying Involvement in
Primary School and Common Health Problems' in 'Archives
of Disease in Childhood', Volume 85, pages 197-201.
856 Norwegian teenagers
took part in a bullying study in 1995. The study was looking
at links between bullying and health. It considered both
physical complaints (such as headaches, dizziness and stomach
ache) and psychological complaints (such as feeling low,
nervousness and irritability). It found that bullied children
were far more likely than those who had never been bullied,
to suffer from a wide range of symptoms. Surprisingly, the
one symptom which the bullied teenagers did not suffer from
more often than the non bullied ones, was sleeplessness.
The most common psychological symptom amongst the bullied
children was feeling low. It was also found that the number
of symptoms increased with the amount of bullying.
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Article details
G K Natvig, G Albreksten
and U Qvarnstrøm (2001) 'Psychosomatic Symptoms Among
Victims of School Bullying' in 'Journal of Health Psychology',
Volume 4, Issue 4.
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Graph details
See table 3, page
371 in the above article.
In the mid 1990s,
723 secondary school pupils in Sheffield answered questions
about the effects of bullying and ways of coping with it.
Of the 34% of students who had been bullied, all had found
it stressful. 11% had found it extremely stressful. Many
of the pupils (44%) said that they felt irritable. Other
effects included: feeling panicky and nervous, having recurring
bad memories about what had happened, suffering concentration
problems and feeling physically ill.
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Article details
S Sharp (1995) 'How
Much Does Bullying Hurt? The Effects of Bullying on the
Personal Wellbeing and Educational Progress of Secondary
Aged Students' in 'Educational and Child Psychology', Volume
12, Number 2, pages 81 - 88.
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Graph details
'Effects of bullying
on students', graph 3, page 85 in the above article.
A study of over 2,000
secondary school pupils in Australia found that bullying
can have an effect on later mental health. The young people
were interviewed twice in year 8 (13 years) and once in
year 9. The results showed that there was a link between
bullying and later anxiety and depression. This link was
particularly strong for girls.
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Article details
L Bond et al (2001)
'Does Bullying Cause Emotional Problems? A prospective study
of young teenagers' in 'British Medical Journal', Volume
323, September.
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