Peer bullying and accompanying emotional and behavioral problems in secondary schools

Peer Bullying and Accompanying Emotional and Behavioral Problems in Secondary Schools Peer bullying (PB) is defined as "one or more students constantly behaving negatively towards another student". For an action to be considered as bullying, it must be intentional and intended to cause harm, be repetitive and there must be power inequality between the bully and the victim. Depression, psychiatric problems and problems in relationships with parents and friends are more commonly seen in children subjected to PB and those who bully. In addition, the relationship between peer PB reported. There is very little data regarding this subject in our country. The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of PB among the 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students in the city of Bursa and to multi dimensionally determine the accompanying factors. The long-term aim of the study was to conduct a prestudy for developing a protective program for the case of peer bullying. The sample of the study consisted of 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students, and the students were divided into four groups as victim, bully, bully-victim and no PB. In the study, a personal information form prepared by the researchers, the "Olweus Bullying Questionnaire", the "Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire" and the "Shortened Expressed Emotion Scale" were used as data collection tools. The statistical analysis of the data was done with IBM SPSS Statistics Version 22.0. The sample of the study consisted of 431 female and 425 male students. When the study groups were compared in terms of sub-scales, behavioral problems and emotional problems were significantly higher in both the bully and the victim groups, while prosocial behaviors were found to be significantly less in these two groups. However, teenagers, who were a victim 4 or a bully, were found to perceive their families significantly less emotionally supportive and intrusive compared to their peers who were not. There was no difference between the groups in terms of attention deficit, peer problems and the perception the family as angry. The perception of the family as intrusive (p=0.005) increased the chances of being a victim by 1.042 times, experiencing emotional problems (p=0.002) by 1.161 times and peer problems (p=0.040) by 1.147 times. Experiencing behavioral problems (p=0.043) increase the chances of being a bully by 1.330 times. Intrusiveness (p<0.001) increase the chances of being a bully-victim by 1.075 times, the lack of emotional support (0.044) by 1.030 times, emotional problems (p<0.001) by 1.301 times and peer problems (p=0.027) by 1.268 times. Increased prosocial behaviors (p=0.027) decrease the chances of being a bully-victim by 1.219 times. In our study, the effects of the perceived family climate and psychopathology on PB was analyzed. Considering the place of family climate in the etiology of psychopathology, it was thought that this effect might be caused through psychopathologies. The findings showed the importance of family climate in PB. For this reason, the necessity of therapeutic interventions protecting the mental health of individuals in the reduction of PB and developing family-based protection methods besides the existing school-based protection methods were considered. Keywords: Peer bullying, expressed emotion, psychopathology, adolescent, family.