Bullying behaviour and psychosocial health among school students in New South Wales, Australia: cross sectional survey

Objectives To examine the prevalence of bullying behaviours in schoolchildr en and the association of bullying with psychological and psychosomatic hea lth. Design Cross sectional survey. Setting Government and non-government schools in New South Wales, Australia . Participants 3918 schoolchildren attending year 6 (mean age 11.88 years), y ear 8 (13.96), and year 10 (15.97) classes from 115 schools. Main outcome measures Self reported bullying behaviours and psychological a nd psychosomatic symptoms. Results Almost a quarter of students (23.7%) bullied other students, 12.7% were bullied, 21.5% were both bullied and bullied others on one or more occ asions in the last term of school, and 42.4% were neither bullied nor bulli ed others. More boys than girls reported bullying others and being victims of bullying: Bullying behaviour was associated with increased psychosomatic symptoms. Bullies tended to be unhappy with school; students who were bull ied tended to like school and to feel alone. Students who both bullied and were bullied had the greatest number of psychological and psychosomatic sym ptoms. Conclusions Being bullied seems to be widespread in schools in New South Wa les and is associated with increased psychosomatic symptoms and poor mental health. Health practitioners evaluating students with common psychological and psychosomatic symptoms should consider bullying and the student's scho ol environment as potential causes.