Victims of bullying: an analysis of educational patterns and suicidological status

In recent decades, the domestic lexicon has been enriched by such an important term as “bullying”. Bullying (abuse in a team) is a systemic psychological terror, bullying by a stronger group or individual over a weaker one for a long time. A significant part of publications on this topic is presented in the English-language segment. However, at the moment, the causes of this phenomenon remain unclear, and the consequences are not indicated sufficiently specific. Aims and objectives: to study the effect of bullying on auto-aggressive, and, in particular, on the suicidological profile of boys and girls, as well as the search for its possible predictors. Materials and methods: there were studied 123 girls (mean age 21.9±2.5 years) and 35 young men (mean age 22.4±2.7 years) who were systematically exposed to bullying. The control group included 126 girls and 30 young men of the corresponding age. As a diagnostic tool, a clinical and anamnestic questionnaire were used to identify autoaggressive patterns and their predictors in the past and present, the international ICAST-R questionnaire, a questionnaire for assessing adverse CTQ childhood experience. A comparison was made of all the studied characteristics in the subgroups. Mathematical data processing was performed using the SPSS-Statistics and Statistica 12 programs. Re sults: according to the data obtained, 45% of girls and 46% of boys were victims of bullying, of whom 5% of girls and 8% of boys experienced “regular bullying”, which generally indicates the widespread prevalence of this phenomenon. It is worth noting that girls and boys from the study group were more exposed to various types of violence (emotional, physical, sexual) in childhood relative to control groups. Also, some patterns of parenting were studied. Differences were identified with respect to the basic attitudes of a sense of security and protection in the family. The data obtained may indicate the formation of the position of the "chronic victim" familiar in the parental family. When assessing the suicidological characteristics of the studied groups, the following statistically significant indicators were identified. In the studied groups, more than 50% of girls and 48.5% of boys had thoughts about the possibility of committing suicide. 45.5% of girls and 42.8% of young men considered the method of committing suicide (26.1% and 10% in the control group); they drew up a suicide plan (24.3% of girls and 17.1% of boys against 8.7% and 0% of control, respectively), the presence of a suicide attempt in the anamnesis was reported for 18.7% of girls (in control - 7.1%). Conclusions: it can be assumed that bullying can be an “intermediate” stage, rooting and reinforcing the “I am not OK” position, as well as a factor catalyzing auto-aggressive behavior. The fact of bullying should be alarming in terms of the potentially high risk of autoaggressive behavior and can, without a doubt, be attributed to predictors of suicidal behavior.