Impact of Bullying-Victimization and Gender over Psychological Distress, Suicidal Ideation, and Family Functioning of Mexican Adolescents.

Bullying victimization is strongly associated with increased psychological distress and suicide in adolescents and poor family functioning. Knowledge of gender differences influencing these factors will improve the prevention of mental problems and suicide in victimized adolescents. A total of 1685 Mexican secondary students, 12-17 years old (m = 13.65), of whom 54% were girls, responded to a standardized scale questionnaire to analyze such differences. Based on the statistical analysis, girls reported significantly lower family functioning and higher psychological distress and suicidal ideation than boys. The cluster analysis classified adolescents into high (5.78%), moderate (24.07%), and no-victimization (69.76%) groups. Boys predominated in the high (3.1%) and moderate-victimization (12.4%) clusters, and girls in the no-victimization group (39.51%). Multivariate statistical analyses found significant differences between the three groups, with the highest means of psychological distress and suicidal ideation and lowest family functioning in the high-victimization group. Only for suicidal ideation, there was an interaction between gender and the degree of victimization, with girls showing a higher increase of suicidal ideation than boys in the same cluster. Conclusions: Early detection and intervention in bullying-victimized adolescents, aiming to decrease psychological distress and suicidal ideation and strengthen family functioning, should consider contextual gender differences for effective prevention of mental health problems and suicide in adolescents.

Temporomandibular disorders and bullying: The mediating role of anxiety in young adults.

BACKGROUND: Bullying is a major social issue. Individuals who experience bullying victimization may develop stress-related health disorders, such as anxiety and temporomandibular disorders (TMDs). As school bullying can enhance or trigger stress and anxiety, individuals who experience bullying victimization are prone to develop TMD. However, it is still unclear whether this relationship is mediated by anxiety. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to investigate the role of anxiety in the relationship between bullying victimization and TMD among young adults. METHODS: A cross-sectional study among 578 students aged 18 to 25 years in Yucatan, Mexico. A mediation model was used to identify whether anxiety mediated the relationship between bullying victimization and the development of TMD. RESULTS: Our results showed that 14.2% of the students self-identified as victims of bullying, and 43.7% reported having a type of TMD. The indirect effect of the pathway "victimization → anxiety → TMD" was significant (ß= 0.660; p ⟨0.001). There was also an effect, not mediated by anxiety (ß= 0.31; p= 0.026). This means that the relationship between victimization caused by bullying and TMD is mostly mediated by anxiety. CONCLUSION: This study presents the first evidence of the role of anxiety as a mediator of the relationship between bullying victimization and TMD among young adults in Mexico.

Bullying Victimization among Mexican Adolescents: Psychosocial Differences from an Ecological Approach.

This transversal study over a random representative sample of 1687 Mexican students attending public and private secondary schools (54% girls, 12-17 years old, M = 13.65. DT = 1.14) aimed to analyze psychosocial differences between victims and non-victims of bullying from the bioecological model. It included individual variables (ontosystem), familiar, community, and scholar factors (microsystem), and gender (macrosystem) to perform a multivariate discriminant analysis and a logistic regression analysis. The discriminant analysis found that psychological distress, offensive communication with mother and father, and a positive attitude toward social norms transgression characterized the high victimization cluster. For the non-victims, the discriminant variables were community implication, positive attitude toward institutional authority, and open communication with the mother. These variables allowed for correctly predicting membership in 76% of the cases. Logistic regression analysis found that psychological distress, offensive communication with the father, and being a boy increased the probability of high victimization, while a positive attitude toward authority, open communication with the mother, and being a girl decrease this probability. These results highlight the importance of open and offensive communication between adolescents and their parents on psychological distress, attitude toward authority, community implication, and bullying victimization.