Psychiatric outcomes of bullying victimization: a study of discordant monozygotic twins

Bullying victimization in childhood is associated with a broad array of serious mental health disturbances, including anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation and behavior. The key goal of this study was to evaluate whether bullying victimization is a true environmental risk factor for psychiatric...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychological medicine 2016-07, Vol.46 (9), p.1875-1883
Main Authors: Silberg, J. L., Copeland, W., Linker, J., Moore, A. A., Roberson-Nay, R., York, T. P.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Anxiety
Anxiety, Separation - epidemiology
Anxiety, Separation - etiology
Anxiety-Depression
Bullying
Bullying - statistics & numerical data
Child
Child development
Childhood
Children
Co-twins
Crime Victims - statistics & numerical data
Data processing
Depression
Diseases in Twins - epidemiology
Environmental aspects
Environmental impact
Female
Fitting
Genetic factors
Genotypes
Humans
Longitudinal Studies
Male
Mental disorders
Mental health
Monozygotic
Original Articles
Phobia, Social - epidemiology
Phobia, Social - etiology
Risk assessment
Risk factors
Separation anxiety
Social anxiety
Social development
Structural equation modeling
Studies
Suicidal Ideation
Suicide
Trauma
Twin studies
Twins
Twins, Monozygotic
Victimization
Young Adult
Young adults
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Summary:Bullying victimization in childhood is associated with a broad array of serious mental health disturbances, including anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation and behavior. The key goal of this study was to evaluate whether bullying victimization is a true environmental risk factor for psychiatric disturbance using data from 145 bully-discordant monozygotic (MZ) juvenile twin pairs from the Virginia Twin Study of Adolescent Behavioral Development (VTSABD) and their follow-up into young adulthood. Since MZ twins share an identical genotype and familial environment, a higher rate of psychiatric disturbance in a bullied MZ twin compared to their non-bullied MZ co-twin would be evidence of an environmental impact of bullying victimization. Environmental correlations between being bullied and the different psychiatric traits were estimated by fitting structural equation models to the full sample of MZ and DZ twins (N = 2824). Environmental associations were further explored using the longitudinal data on the bullying-discordant MZ twins. Being bullied was associated with a wide range of psychiatric disorders in both children and young adults. The analysis of data on the MZ-discordant twins supports a genuine environmental impact of bullying victimization on childhood social anxiety [odds ratio (OR) 1.7], separation anxiety (OR 1.9), and young adult suicidal ideation (OR 1.3). There was a shared genetic influence on social anxiety and bullying victimization, consistent with social anxiety being both an antecedent and consequence of being bullied. Bullying victimization in childhood is a significant environmental trauma and should be included in any mental health assessment of children and young adults.
ISSN:0033-2917
1469-8978
DOI:10.1017/S0033291716000362