Irregular bedtime and nocturnal cellular phone usage as risk factors for being involved in bullying: a cross-sectional survey of Japanese adolescents

A number of studies have tried to identify risk factors for being involved in bullying in order to help developing preventive measures; however, to our knowledge, no study has investigated the effect of nocturnal lifestyle behavior such as sleep pattern or cellular phone usage. In the present study,...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2012-09, Vol.7 (9), p.e45736-e45736
Main Authors: Tochigi, Mamoru, Nishida, Atsushi, Shimodera, Shinji, Oshima, Norihito, Inoue, Ken, Okazaki, Yuji, Sasaki, Tsukasa
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adolescents
Aggression
Alcohol use
Behavior
Bullying
Cell Phone
Cell phones
Cellular telephones
Cross sections
Cross-Sectional Studies
Domestic violence
Humans
Internet
Japan
Medicine
Middle school students
Middle schools
Nocturnal
Public schools
Quality
Risk analysis
Risk Factors
Schools
Secondary school students
Secondary schools
Sleep
Social and Behavioral Sciences
Students
Studies
Teenagers
Telephone communications
Telephones
Victims
Violence
Well being
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:A number of studies have tried to identify risk factors for being involved in bullying in order to help developing preventive measures; however, to our knowledge, no study has investigated the effect of nocturnal lifestyle behavior such as sleep pattern or cellular phone usage. In the present study, we aimed to investigate the relationship between school bullying and sleep pattern or nocturnal cellular phone usage in adolescents. The effect of school size on school bullying was also examined. Data from the cross-sectional survey of psychopathologies conducted for 19,436 Japanese students from 45 public junior high schools (7(th)-9(th) grade) and 28 senior high schools (10(th)-12(th) grade) were analyzed. Bullying status was significantly associated with irregular bedtime (OR = 1.23 and 1.41 for pure bullies and bully-victims, respectively) and e-mail exchange or calling after lights-out (OR = 1.53 and 1.31 for pure bullies and bully-victims, respectively) after controlling domestic violence and substance usage. In addition, school size was significantly associated with the increased risk of bullying in junior high school students (OR = 1.13 for bully-victims). The present results suggested that sleep pattern and nocturnal cellular phone usage might be risk factors for being involved in school bullying in adolescents. Although further accumulation of data is needed, progressive trend towards nocturnal lifestyle and increasing usage of cellular phone might impair the well-being of adolescents. School-based interventions for lifestyle including sleep pattern and cellular phone usage may be encouraged to reduce school bullying.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0045736