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Longitudinal associations between bullying and mental health among adolescents in Vietnam

  • Original Article
  • Published:
International Journal of Public Health

Abstract

Objectives

This study measured bullying roles across an academic year and examined how change in bullying experiences is associated with symptoms of depression, psychological distress, and suicidal ideation among adolescents in Vietnam.

Methods

1424 students in middle and high schools completed two self-administered questionnaires, six months apart in 2014–2015.

Results

Students who were victimised often and those who were classified as highly involved as both victims and bullies at one or both survey times showed significantly higher levels of depression, psychological distress, and suicidal ideation than other students. The mental health of adolescents who were involved in bullying as a victim or bully remained at low levels was generally similar to those not involved in any bullying. However, females who had stable but low level in victimisation or bully–victim status had worse mental health than males with stable-low-level exposure.

Conclusion

This is the first longitudinal analysis of bullying among adolescents in Vietnam. Persistent and frequent bullying was strongly linked with poor mental health for males and females. A new observation is that Vietnamese girls appear to be more sensitive to low level but long-term bullying involvement than were boys.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank all students who participated in the study, the management board of four schools in Hanoi and HaiDuong, Ms. Dinh Thu Ha, and the data collection team from the Hanoi School of Public Health for their efforts and collaboration.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Social Sciences and Health Education, Hanoi University of Public Health, Hanoi, Vietnam

    Ha Thi Hai Le & Huong Thanh Nguyen

  2. Faculty of Education, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia

    Marilyn A. Campbell

  3. Faculty of Health, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia

    Ha Thi Hai Le, Michelle L. Gatton & Michael P. Dunne

  4. Faculty of Sociology, Academy of Journalism and Communication, Hanoi, Vietnam

    Nam T. Tran

  5. Institute for Social Science Research, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia

    Nam T. Tran

  6. Institute for Community Health Research, Hue University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Hue, Vietnam

    Michael P. Dunne

Authors
  1. Ha Thi Hai Le
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  2. Huong Thanh Nguyen
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  3. Marilyn A. Campbell
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  4. Michelle L. Gatton
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  5. Nam T. Tran
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  6. Michael P. Dunne
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ha Thi Hai Le.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the Human Research Ethics Committees of the Queensland University of Technology (Australia) and the Hanoi School of Public Health (Vietnam) and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors.

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Additional information

This article is part of the supplement “Health and social determinants of health in Vietnam: local evidence and international implications”.

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Le, H.T.H., Nguyen, H.T., Campbell, M.A. et al. Longitudinal associations between bullying and mental health among adolescents in Vietnam. Int J Public Health 62 (Suppl 1), 51–61 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00038-016-0915-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00038-016-0915-8

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