Bully/victim problems and coping with stress in school among 10-to 12-year-old pupils in Aland, Finland

The aim of the present study was to investigate connections between roles i n bullying and coping with stress in school. The differences between pupils who were victims of different types of bullying were also analysed. The pa rticipants were 510 ten- to twelve-year-old pupils. Slightly modified versi ons of the Bully/Victim Questionnaire [Olweus D (1978): Hemisphere; (1993): Cosmoprint] and the Life Events and Coping Inventory [Dise-Lewis (1988): P sychosomatic Medicine 50:484-499] were used. The results suggest that the c oping strategies of "aggression" and "self-destruction" were associated wit h bullying. For boys, victims of bullying did not differ as much as bullies , and especially bully/victims, from uninvolved pupils. For girls, there wa s a tendency for victims of indirect bullying to use more "self-destruction " strategies compared with victims of direct bullying. (C) 2000 Wiley-Liss, Inc.