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. 2018 Jul 10;18(1):800.
doi: 10.1186/s12889-018-5682-4.

Cross-national aspects of cyberbullying victimization among 14-17-year-old adolescents across seven European countries

Kalliope Athanasiou  1 , Eirini Melegkovits  1 , Elisabeth K Andrie  1 , Charalampos Magoulas  1 , Chara K Tzavara  1 , Clive Richardson  2 , Donald Greydanus  3 , Maria Tsolia  1 , Artemis K Tsitsika  4
Affiliations

Cross-national aspects of cyberbullying victimization among 14-17-year-old adolescents across seven European countries

Kalliope Athanasiou et al. BMC Public Health. .

Abstract

Background: The increasing use of the Internet and social network sites (SNS) has created a new domain of socio-emotional development for adolescents. The aim of this cross-sectional study was to explore cybervictimization across seven European countries, in relation to socio-demographic, Internet use and psychosocial variables.

Methods: A cross-sectional school-based study was conducted in the participating countries: Germany, Greece, Iceland the Netherlands, Poland, Romania and Spain. Anonymous self-completed questionnaires included sociodemographic data, internet usage characteristics, school achievement, parental control, the Internet Addiction Test and Achenbach's Youth Self-Report.

Results: The highest rate of cyber victimization was found in Romania (37.3%) and the lowest in Spain (13.3%). Multiple logistic regression analyses gave differing results between countries. In Romania, Poland and Germany cyberbullying victimization was associated with SNS use, whereas Internet use was associated with increased odds of cybervictimization only in Romania. Cybervictimization was associated with greater internalizing behavior problems in all countries analysed, and with externalizing problems in all except Romania.

Conclusions: Cyberbullying victimization is an on-going problem, which is subject to country-specific socio-demographic factors and diverse patterns of current Internet use and its development. Preventive measures should emphasize the integration of Internet communication technology education in educational contexts, and focus on the consistent association between cybervictimization and internalizing and externalizing difficulties.

Keywords: Adolescents; Cross-cultural differences; Cyberbullying; Cybervictims.

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Conflict of interest statement

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Each participating country petitioned local ethical approval by their respective organizations. In Germany the EU NET ADB study was approved by the Ethics Committee at the Rhineland-Palatinate State Chamber of Medicine. In Greece approval was granted by the Ethical committee of the Second Dept. of Pediatrics of the P. & A. Kyriakou Children’s Hospital of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. In Netherlands the study was approved by the Medical Ethical Committee of the Erasmus University of Rotterdam. In Iceland the research was approved by the National Bioethics Committee and the data collection was reported to the Data Protection Authority. In Poland the EU NET ADB study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Nobody’s Children Foundation (NCF) Board. In Romania the approval was granted by the Ethical Committee of University of Medicine and Pharmacy “Grigore T. Popa” Iasi in agreement of Romanian Ministry of Education. Ethical committee details can be found in the EU.NET.ADB report http://youth-health.gr/media/2016/03/eu-net-adb-quantitative-report-d6-2-r-june-2013_2.pdf). Written informed consent was required from all eligible participants and parents prior to participation in the study.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Proportion of adolescents that has been bullied online in past 12 months, by country
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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