School bullying among Chinese third to fifth grade primary school students in a cross-sectional study: The protective effect of psychological resilience

• Published in: PloS one 2022-12, Vol.17 (12), p.e0278698-e0278698
• Main Authors: Fei, Liping, Liao, Maoxu, Ke, Lei, Zou, Yanli, Li, Xin, Chen, Yiting, Zhang, Rong
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adolescent; Behavior; Beliefs, opinions and attitudes; Biology and Life Sciences; Bullying; Bullying - prevention & control; Chi-square test; Child; Cross-Sectional Studies; Demographic aspects; East Asian People; Elementary school students; Female; Females; Forecasts and trends; Humans; Influence; Middle schools; Murders & murder attempts; Parents & parenting; People and Places; Private schools; Public schools; Questionnaires; Regression analysis; Resilience; Resilience (Personality trait); Resilience, Psychological; School violence; Schools; Social Sciences; Statistical analysis; Stress; Students; Well being
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0278698

School bullying is a major concern for school-aged youth and has great impacts on children's health and well-being, and an increasing number of school bullying cases have been reported in China. Many studies have indicated that psychological resilience may have a well-established association with school bullying. However, only a limited number of studies have explored this association, especially among primary school students. The present study aimed to investigate the relationship between school bullying and psychological resilience among primary school students from a Chinese city. The participants were 6,011 primary school students aged 7-14 years who were recruited in a cross-sectional survey in Luzhou, China. The statistical significance of differences between groups was tested using the χ2 test or t test. Binary logistic regression analyses were conducted to explore the association between psychological resilience and school bullying. The incidence rates of bullies and victims were 30.00% (1803/6011; 95% CI: 28.84%-31.16%) and 69.89% (4201/6011; 95% CI: 68.73%-71.05%), respectively. Psychological resilience was a protective factor of school bullying among primary school students (for bullying perpetrators, OR = 0.76, 95%CI:0.62-0.93, and for bully victims OR = 0.74, 95%CI:0.61-0.90), especially among female students (for bullying perpetrators, OR = 0.63, 95%CI: 0.47-0.85, and for bully victims, OR = 0.69, 95%CI: 0.53-0.90). School bullying among primary school students in Luzhou City was highly prevalent. High levels of psychological resilience might be a protective factor in preventing primary students from being involved in school bullying, especially among females.