Bullying - A systematic review of prevalence and an exploration of its association with attenuated symptoms of psychosis

The thesis comprises of two studies. The first was systematic review and meta-analysis of bullying prevalence amongst post-primary children in the United Kingdom. 45 eligible studies were found and prevalence meta-analysis provided pooled prevalence estimates of bullying across three time periods (1993-2002, 2003-2012, 2013-2022). For 2013-2022 the pooled prevalence estimates were as follows: victims of traditional bullying 23%, perpetrators of traditional bullying 10%, victims of cyberbullying 15%, preparators of cyberbullying 8%. Insufficient studies prevented a meta-analysis of bully/victims prevalence but relevant studies ranged from 1% to 20%. The second was an empirical study which explored the association between sex, age, adverse childhood experiences and bullying with attenuated symptoms of psychosis. A hierarchical multiple regression explored four models combing age, sex, ACEs, traditional bullying and cyberbullying and their relationship to the PQ16 in 1528 adults (18-35) . The final regression model, which combined all forms of bullying, age, sex, and ACEs explained 15% of variance in relation to the number of items endorsed on the PQ16. Traditional forms of bullying made a unique contribution of 4.6% to the regression model and this was increased by 0.6% when cyberbullying was also included. Although sex showed a significant association with the number of items endorsed on the PQ16 in the first regression model, this relationship disappeared when ACEs were introduced.