The Association between Deliberate Self-Harm and School Bullying Victimization and the Mediating Effect of Depressive Symptoms and Self-Stigma: A Systematic Review
Abstract
Background: Identifying deliberate self-harm in the young and its relationship with bullying victimization is an important public health issue.
Methods: A systematic review was performed to explore evidence of the association between deliberate self-harm and school bullying victimization in young people, as well as the mediating effect of depressive symptoms and self-stigma on this association. An advanced search in the following electronic databases was conducted in January 2018: PubMed/Medline; CINAHL; PsycINFO; PsycARTICLES; Science Direct; Scopus, and Cochrane Library. Studies that fulfilled the inclusion criteria were further assessed for their methodological integrity. The Norwegian Knowledge Centre for Health Services tool was applied for cross-sectional studies and the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme instrument for the cohort studies. Only empirical quantitative studies published in the English language in peer reviewed journals during the last decade (2007-2018) aimed at exploring the association between deliberate self-harm and school bullying victimization in community-based schoolchildren with a mean age of under 20 years were included.
Results: The reviewed cross-sectional and cohort studies (22) revealed a positive association between school bullying victimization and deliberate self-harm, including nonsuicidal self-injury, which remained statistically significant when controlled for the main confounders. The mediating role of depressive symptoms in the…
How strong is the evidence?
Evidence Hub reads this as a systematic review, done in people. Its evidence level is 1 of 5 (Highest · pooled evidence). Pooled evidence from several studies sits at the top of the evidence pyramid.
Read the paper
Related studies
- The neurocircuitry of addiction: an overview
- Gender Differences in Human Brain: A Review
- Stratified medicine for mental disorders
- The neurobiology of drug addiction: cross-species insights into the dysfunction and recovery of the prefrontal cortex
- Annual Research Review: DNA methylation as a mediator in the association between risk exposure and child and adolescent psychopathology
- Schizophrenia: The new etiological synthesis
Go deeper in Evidence Hub
Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.