CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Bullying and cyberbullying are important risk factors for the mental health of adolescents. Bullying is defined as an intentional aggression, repeated on time, and characterized by a difference of powers between the victim and the aggressor. Cyberbullying is an aggression with the same characteristics of the bullying, but carried out on the cyberspace. Despite the relevance of this problem, there is no meta-analysis that determines the effectiveness of interventions directed to reduce both problems. In this way, the objective of this book chapter is to present meta-analysis that address the effectiveness of interventions directed to reduce bullying, victimization, cyberbullying, and cybervictimization in adolescents. A systematic review of scientific papers published in Spanish, English and Portuguese was conducted between 2000 and 2018. The databases included were: Scielo, Pub Med, JSTOR, Dialnet, EBSCO, Latindex and PsycINFO. After the research, sixteen articles were included in the traditional bullying meta-analysis, fourteen articles were included in the traditional victimization meta-analysis, eleven articles were included in the cyberbullying meta-analysis, and finally eight articles were included in the cybervictimization meta-analysis. The size of the effect of bullying and cyberbullying interventions was analyzed to establish which one is more effective. Comparing bullying and cyberbullying, the results of the present study indicated that bullying programs were a bit more effective than cyberbullying programs, while the effect size of the intervention program on victimization and cybervictimization were similar. Explanations about why interventions on bullying are more successful and implications of these findings are provided and analyzed in the conclusion. Finally, suggestions for future studies are suggested.

enviar mensaje