03 Nov Family Support Mitigates Negative Impact of Cyberbullying

MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Frank J. Elgar, PhD
Associate Professor of Psychiatry
Canada Research Chair in Social Inequalities in Child Health
Institute for Health and Social Policy, McGill University
Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?

Dr. Elgar: Our study addressed two questions. The first was whether cyberbullying has unique links to adolescent mental health, or is an extension of traditional (face-to-face) bullying. We measured various forms of bullying and found that cyberbullying does indeed have a unique impact on mental health.

Our second question about protective factors in the home environment.  We examined the frequency of family dinners as potential a moderating factor – understanding, of course, that dinners are a proxy of various family characteristics that benefit adolescents, such as communication, support, and parental monitoring. We found that teens who were targeted by cyberbullying but had ate dinner with their families more often had significantly better mental health outcomes as a result.

Medical Research: What was most surprising about the results?

Dr. Elgar: The strength of the associations. Victims of cyberbullying, compared to non-victims, were more than twice as likely to have been drunk, gotten into a physical fight, vandalized property, and had suicidal thoughts; more than three more likely to experience binge drinking, high anxiety, engage in self-harm, and attempt suicide, and more than four times more likely to misuse prescription drugs and over-the-counter drugs.

Medical Research: What should clinicians and patients take away from your report?

Dr. Elgar: For health providers and parents, I guess our data confirm what they would intuit about the value of communication and family support. It can be hard to detect cyberbullying if you don’t ask about it. So our study is not really about dinners at all; it is about communication.

Medical Research: What recommendations do you have for future research as a result of this study?

Dr. Elgar: There were a few limitations in the study that we’d like to address. With the cross-sectional design, we could not tell if the mental health problems we saw were consequences of cyberbullying or if kids who have mental health problems are more likely to become targets of bullying, or if teens with existing mental health issues are reluctant to come together with family for meals, or all of the above. Only a longitudinal study can sort out specifically how family dinners benefit adolescent victims of cyberbullying.

Citation:

Last Updated on November 3, 2014 by Marie Benz MD FAAD