Childhood Bullying Linked To Adolescent Psychosis
According to a report in the May issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, children who experience constant bullying at the hands of peers are more likely to manifest psychotic symptoms in early adolescence.
Several studies have shown that traumatic occurrences in childhood such as physical or sexual abuse are strongly connected to the development of psychosis in adulthood. And people who show psychotic symptoms in childhood are more prone to develop schizophrenia as adults.
Andrea Schreier, Ph.D., of Warwick Medical School and colleagues, wanted to see if bullying might bring about some of these symptoms in adolescents. They studied 6,437 12-year-olds who had yearly physical and psychological assessments from age 7 and whose parents regularly filled out surveys.
At each visit, trained interviewers assessed the children for hallucinations, delusions or thought disorders experienced during the previous six months. Children, parents and teachers also reported any peer victimization, or actions of harmful intent experienced by the child.
A total of 46.2 percent of participants were considered victims of bullying when they were 8 or 10. The follow-up showed that 13.7% had broad psychosis-like symptoms, 11.5% had intermediate symptoms, and 5.6% had narrow symptoms.
They found that the demonstration of psychotic symptoms had doubled among those bullied, regardless of any psychiatric illness, troubled family life or level of intelligence. This link was even more obvious when the bullying was chronic or severe.
"A range of mechanisms has been proposed to explain the link between traumatic events, such as victimization, and psychotic symptoms," the authors write. For instance, chronic stress from bullying may trigger a genetic predisposition to schizophrenia and the manifestation of its symptoms.
The authors of the study conclude that in order to determine whether repeated bullying experiences change mental processes or alter ones ability to respond to stress and whether the psychotic symptoms are stemming from a genetic predisposition will require further research.
"A major implication is that chronic or severe peer victimization has non-trivial, adverse, long-term consequences,” they said.
They also added that it would be highly advantageous to implement intervention programs to reduce bullying in order to prevent some common mental health issues and psychosis later in life.
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