Association between cyberbullying and depression in college students / 中国学校卫生

ABSTRACT

Objective@#To explore the relationship between cyberbullying and depression in college students, and to provide a scientific basis for the prevention of cyberbullying.@*Methods@#A total of 3 914 college students from 6 universities in Shanxi Province were selected as research objects. The students’ cyberbullying behavior scale and depression self-rating scale were used to investigate the students.@*Results@#The overall reported rate of cyberbullying among college students was 17.4%. Boys who suffered from online verbal bullying and online fraud scored higher than girls. Students whose parents divorced scored higher than those whose parents did not divorce in all dimensions of cyber-bullying. There was a statistically significant difference in the overall scores of students with different degrees of education and time spent online( P <0.05). Depression was reported in 15.6% of participants. The depression scores of female students were higher than that of male students.College students whose parents were divorced had higher depression scores than those whose parents were not divorced.There were statistically significant differences in depression scores among college students with different fathers’ education levels and different time spent online every day( t / F =2.05, 6.64, 3.91 , 19.52, P <0.05). Pearson correlation analysis showed that online speech bullying, online fraud and identity concealment bullying were positively correlated with depression scores( r s =0.40, 0.36, 0.46, P <0.01). Multiple linear regression analysis showed that three forms of cyberbullying were risk factors for the increase of depression in college students( β =0.89, 0.38, 0.38, P <0.01).@*Conclusion@#Cyber-bullying is one of the risk factors for increasing the severity of depression among college students.Strengthening the management of Internet use, promotion college students’ interpersonal conununication and active cooperating between society, school and family are great significance to reduce the occurrence of cyberbullying.