Identifying resilience factors for adolescent mental health with cyberbullying victimisation as a risk factor

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Promoting resilience can reduce the mental health risks of cyberbullying victimisation in adolescents. We conducted a longitudinal cohort study with 9,969 adolescents (Millennium Cohort Study (MCS)) at ages 14-15 (baseline) and 17 (follow-up). We replicated our analyses in 4,240 adolescents (Longitudinal Study of Australian Children). The outcome was psychological distress at follow-up. Cyberbullying victimisation was a single-item question. Aim one identified modifiable resilience factors (exposures) associated with psychological distress. Aim two examined whether these resilience factors (moderators) interacted with the cyberbullying-distress association. 478/1,466 baseline variables were associated with distress after confounder adjustment (aim one). 31/478 potential resilience factors moderated the cyberbullying-distress association. 15 models replicated in the individual (n=8, e.g., happiness with friends), family and friends (n=3, e.g., sexual activities), structural (n=2, e.g., income sources), and learning environment (n=2, e.g., misbehaviour) domains. We identified several factors for further research on developing interventions to reduce adolescent cyberbullying mental health risks.