TY - JOUR
T1 - Bullying victimization and stress sensitivity in help-seeking youth
T2 - findings from an experience sampling study
AU - Rauschenberg, Christian
AU - van Os, Jim
AU - Goedhart, Matthieu
AU - Schieveld, Jan N. M.
AU - Reininghaus, Ulrich
N1 - Funding Information:
This work is part of the Youth Experience Study, which was funded by the Mutsaers Foundation and Maastricht University. Supported in part by the European Community's Seventh Framework Program under grant agreement No. HEALTH-F2-2009-241909 (Project EU-GEI). U.R. is supported by a Heisenberg professorship from the German Research Foundation (Grant no. 389624707). These funding sources had no further role in study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; or in the decision to submit the paper for publication. The authors are grateful to all participants and their families for participating in the project. We thankfully acknowledge the Mutsaers Foundation for enabling this research and gratefully acknowledge the important work of Nathalie Janssen, MSc (Mutsaers Foundation) and of Mirjam Wouda, MD (Maastricht University) on this study.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, The Author(s).
PY - 2021/4
Y1 - 2021/4
N2 - Bullying victimization confers the risk for developing various mental disorders, but studies investigating candidate mechanisms remain scarce, especially in the realm of youth mental health. Elevated stress sensitivity may constitute a mechanism linking bullying victimization and mental health problems. In the current study, we aimed to investigate whether exposure to bullying victimization amplifies stress sensitivity in youth's daily life. The Experience Sampling Method (ESM) was used to measure stress sensitivity [i.e. the association of momentary stress with (i) negative affect and (ii) psychotic experiences] in 42 help-seeking youths (service users), 17 siblings, and 40 comparison subjects (mean age 15 years). Before ESM assessments, bullying victimization at school as well as various psychopathological domains (i.e. depression, anxiety, psychosis) were assessed. Service users exposed to high levels of overall (primary hypotheses) as well as specific types (secondary hypotheses; physical and indirect, but not verbal) of bullying victimization experienced more intense negative affect and psychotic experiences in response to stress compared to those with low exposure levels (all p <0.05), whereas, in contrast, controls showed either less intense negative affect or no marked differences in stress sensitivity by exposure levels. In siblings, a less consistent pattern of findings was observed. Findings suggest that stress sensitivity may constitute a potential risk and resilience mechanism linking bullying victimization and youth mental health. Interventions that directly target individuals' reactivity to stress by providing treatment components in real-life using mHealth tools may be a promising novel therapeutic approach.
AB - Bullying victimization confers the risk for developing various mental disorders, but studies investigating candidate mechanisms remain scarce, especially in the realm of youth mental health. Elevated stress sensitivity may constitute a mechanism linking bullying victimization and mental health problems. In the current study, we aimed to investigate whether exposure to bullying victimization amplifies stress sensitivity in youth's daily life. The Experience Sampling Method (ESM) was used to measure stress sensitivity [i.e. the association of momentary stress with (i) negative affect and (ii) psychotic experiences] in 42 help-seeking youths (service users), 17 siblings, and 40 comparison subjects (mean age 15 years). Before ESM assessments, bullying victimization at school as well as various psychopathological domains (i.e. depression, anxiety, psychosis) were assessed. Service users exposed to high levels of overall (primary hypotheses) as well as specific types (secondary hypotheses; physical and indirect, but not verbal) of bullying victimization experienced more intense negative affect and psychotic experiences in response to stress compared to those with low exposure levels (all p <0.05), whereas, in contrast, controls showed either less intense negative affect or no marked differences in stress sensitivity by exposure levels. In siblings, a less consistent pattern of findings was observed. Findings suggest that stress sensitivity may constitute a potential risk and resilience mechanism linking bullying victimization and youth mental health. Interventions that directly target individuals' reactivity to stress by providing treatment components in real-life using mHealth tools may be a promising novel therapeutic approach.
KW - ASSOCIATION
KW - Adolescent
KW - Bullying
KW - CHILDHOOD ADVERSITIES
KW - COMORBIDITY
KW - DAILY-LIFE
KW - Ecological momentary assessment
KW - GENE-ENVIRONMENT INTERACTIONS
KW - HEALTH
KW - Mental health
KW - PSYCHIATRIC-DISORDERS
KW - PSYCHOPATHOLOGY
KW - PSYCHOSIS
KW - Psychopathology
KW - REACTIVITY
KW - Stress
U2 - 10.1007/s00787-020-01540-5
DO - 10.1007/s00787-020-01540-5
M3 - Article
C2 - 32405792
SN - 1018-8827
VL - 30
SP - 591
EP - 605
JO - European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry
JF - European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry
IS - 4
ER -