Help-seeking-related beliefs and help-seeking behaviour among adolescents experiencing cyberbullying: a relative importance analysis

Cyberbullying is associated with adverse mental health outcomes in adolescents. Help-seeking from adults represents an important coping response, but the relative importance of beliefs associated with this behaviour remains unclear. This cross-sectional study was conducted on 856 adolescents aged 13–18 years who experienced cyberbullying victimisation, recruited through stratified random sampling at a public school in Bangkok, Thailand. Help-seeking from adults and seven help-seeking-related beliefs were assessed using study-specific questionnaires. Dominance analysis ranked beliefs by their relative contribution to variance in help-seeking behaviour, adjusted for age, gender, and cyberbullying victimisation severity. Random forest regression was used to assess consistency of predictor rankings. The seven beliefs accounted for 22.9% incremental R2 in adjusted analysis. Expected situation improvement had highest standardised dominance weight (38.1%), followed by expected adult’s willingness to provide counsel (30.7%); expected absence of negative consequences ranked last (2.1%). Random forest regression rankings were broadly similar. Further research is warranted.