臺灣大學生之中小學時期霸凌相關經驗與其健康相關生活品質之關連性探討

Abstract

Background and objectives: Bullying is a commonly occurring problem behavior among adolescents and youths, which could lead to long-term health effects. To our knowledge, the effects of school bullying-related experiences on health-related quality of life (HRQOL) among college students have been relatively underexplored. Thus, the current study aimed to empirically examine the prevalence of school bullying-related experiences and their associations with HRQOL among college students in Taiwan. Methods: Self-administered survey data (response rate=90.8%) were collected from a total of 1,452 college students within March, 2013, using the proportional stratified cluster sampling method. Different types of bullying-related experiences (i.e., physical, verbal, relational, and cyber) before and in college, for bullies and victims, were measured. HRQOL was assessed by the World Health Organization Quality of Life (WHOQOL-BREF) Taiwan version. To adjust for potential confounding effects, the multivariate linear regression analyses also accounted for participants’ background characteristics, health conditions (depression, diagnosed physical and mental disorders), and health risk behaviors. Results: College students with cyber bullied experiences before college (β=.060) reported significantly higher HRQOL in physical health. However, none of the bullying-related experiences was significantly associated with HRQOL in the psychological domain. Regarding social relationships, those with verbally (β=-.086) and relationally (β=-.056) bullied experiences, both before and in college, reported significantly lower HRQOL, whereas those with verbal (β=.130) and relational (β=.072) bullying experiences in both periods reported significantly higher HRQOL. Lastly, students with cyber bullied experiences in college (β=.068) reported higher HRQOL in the environment domain. Conclusions: Different types of bullying-related experiences were significantly associated with HRQOL in different domains. In particular, if the bullied experiences occurred both before and in college, HRQOL in social relationships could be affected significantly. In addition, we found a possible mediating effect of depression on the relationships between bullied experiences and HRQOL, suggesting the possible pathway from bullied experiences to decreased HRQOL through manifestations of depression. In brief, findings from this study underscore the importance of attending to bullying-related experiences among adolescents and youths, and more research is urgently needed to explore school policies and health education initiatives that may help ameliorate the impact of bullying in school.