Trauma Begets Trauma: Bullying Associated with Increased Suicide Attempts Among 12-to-15-Year-Olds

Posted on August 22, 2019

Each year, about 67,000 adolescents die of suicide. Such a high number is concerning and calls for the need to identify the factors that lead these individuals to commit suicide as well as to develop interventions that will help adolescents to cope with life demands.

A large sample of adolescents between 12 to 15 years old were involved in the study. Out of the 134,229 participants, it was found that 30 percent of them were victims of bullying during the past month. It was also found that these adolescents are three times more likely to attempt suicide compared to adolescents who were not bullied.

The findings revealed that the tendency for the subjects to attempt suicide is higher when they experienced bullying for a greater number of days. Participants who were bullied for more than 20 days in over the past 30 days were five times as likely as those who were not bullied to report suicide attempts.

Therefore, bullying has been identified as a risk factor for suicide in young adolescents across geographic regions such as Africa, America and South-east Asia.

Given the prominence of bullying and its significant impact on globally, it is important to devise effective interventions that help to prevent suicides by individuals in this age group.


Category(s):Bullying, Suicide Prevention

Source material from Science Daily