A new study revealed that children who had experienced bullying suffer from more serious issues in mental health than those who were abused by adults.
Researchers at the University of Warwick in England initiated the study to determine the long-term effects of bullying and its possible link to being maltreated or neglected by adults as well. They looked at the data of more than 5,000 children who were also participants in two different studies.
The analysis showed that the participants experienced abuse between ages 8 weeks and 8 years while bullying occurred when they were between 8 and 16 years old. The mental issues became evident between age 18 and 25. Participants reported feelings of anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts.
The researchers concluded that bullying has a more adverse effect on the mental health of the children than being abused. Almost 12 percent of the participants experienced maltreatment, 23 percent were bullied as a child, and 8 percent said they had gone through both.
"Being bullied is not a harmless rite of passage or an inevitable part of growing up; it has serious long-term consequences. It is important for schools, health services and other agencies to work together to reduce bullying and the adverse effects related to it," professor Dieter Wolke, study author from Warwick's psychology and Warwick Medical School, said in a press release.
The findings of the study highlight the need for parents, schools and health services to pay attention to bullying and to help reduce it.
"It is particularly novel that they found bullying is a greater source of mental health problems than maltreatment," Catherine Bradshaw, deputy director of the Johns Hopkins Center for the Prevention of Youth Violence in Baltimore, told Reuters. She wasn't part of the study.
The study was published in the April 28 issue of The Lancet Psychiatry.
