Witness to Bullying

Research in the impact of bullying in schools has focused on the ones who are directly involved: the perpetrators and their victims.  But what about those schoolchildren who witness the bullying behaviour?  The December 2009 issue of School Psychology Quarterly presents a study exploring the impact of bullying on the mental health of students who witness it. A representative sample of 2,002 students aged 12 to 16 years attending 14 schools in the United Kingdom were surveyed using a questionnaire that included measures of bullying at school, substance abuse, and mental health risk. The results suggest that observing bullying at school predicted risks to mental health over and above that predicted for those students who were directly involved in bullying behavior as either a perpetrator or a victim. Observing others was also found to predict higher risk irrespective of whether students were or were not victims themselves. Considering the amount of variance that couldn't be accounted for by the regression models used, elevated mental health risk in schoolchildren involves a range of potential contributing factors of which bullying is only one part.  The study also focused on a nonclinical population while schoolchildren already suffering from emotional issues may be more vulnerable to bullying effects.  Longitudinal research into the impact of bullying on victims and bystanders alike may provide better answers into how to deal with this problem more effectively.

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