Bullying in Schools: Prevalence and Short-term Impact

Bullying, defined as an intentional unprovoked abuse of power by one or more children in order to inflict pain or cause distress to another child on repeated occasions, is a common form of child abuse or peer abuse(1,2). The reported prevalence of bullying has generally varied from 7.2-24%(3-5). A Korean study has demonstrated that as many as 40% students surveyed played some role in bullying with at least 23 % being victims or victim-perpetrators(6). Bullying has to be taken seriously as it has been associated with certain immediate unfavorable consequences for the victims(7,8) and several victims carry the scars of this victimization through their adult life (2,9,10). Considering the paucity of data from India and taking into account the potential of this phenomenon to cause damage to the well-being of young children, a study to determine the prevalence of bullying amongst school children and if it was associated with any symptomatology. Subjects and Methods This prospective study was conducted by enrolling students from three randomly selected schools from the locality. The sample size was calculated taking into consideration the prevalence of bullying found in a pilot study (35%), variability of ± 5 % and the possible refusal rate (20%). A pre-tested semi-structured questionnaire based on previously validated tool developed by Olweus(11,12) was used for interviewing children studying in 3rd-7th grades. These children were randomly selected using a random table so as to obtain a sample size of 500 children. Another pre-tested semi-structured questionnaire was used t