Browsing by Author "Leppälä, Mira"

Objective. Cyberbullying affects children and adolescents around the world since today almost everyone has access to the internet. Cyberbullying can be defined as intentional, harmful and repetitive activity via electronic devices or internet, for example bullying via text messages and sharing or sending pictures or videos without permission. Depression is one of the most common mental disorders and it affects the functional ability of people worldwide. Based on current research literature, there seems to be a bidirectional association between traditional bullying and depressive symptoms, meaning that being bullied increases the risk for depressive symptoms and being depressed increases the risk for being bullied. Previous studies have also shown that there are sex differences in this association. Additionally, it is known that depression is more common amongst girls compared to boys. The association between cyberbullying and depressive symptoms has been researched considerably less. This thesis reviews studies on the association between cyberbullying victimisation and depressive symptoms and possible sex differences of this association, in that is the association bidirectional and are there differences between boys and girls. Methods. Studies were included in this thesis, if they assessed the association between cyberbullying victimisation and depressive symptoms and the sex difference of this association. Both longitudinal and cross-sectional studies were included. Results and conclusions. Adolescence cyberbullying victimisation was associated with depressive symptoms. Reviewed studies showed that cyberbullying victims reported significantly more depressive symptoms compared to non-victims and there were tentative results that the more cyberbullying is experienced, the more depressive symptoms there are. There were also tentative results on the bidirectionality of the association, but so far there are few longitudinal studies. Sex differences have also been researched in only a couple of studies so definitive conclusions cannot be drawn on whether the association differs between girls and boys. If cyberbullying victimisation really increases the risk for depressive symptoms, it is ever more important to develop actions against cyberbullying for example as a part of schools’ mental health programmes and further courage parents to supervise adolescents’ internet usage since it is known to reduce the risk for cyberbullying victimisation.