<\/p>\n
Latest Mental Health News<\/h3>\n
\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
![\"News](\"https:\/\/media.healthday.com\/Images\/icimages\/cell_bed917.jpg\"\/)
<\/p>\n
TUESDAY, June 23, 2020 (HealthDay News)<\/p>\n
Both cyberbullies and their victims can suffer from symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder<\/a> (PTSD<\/a>), a new British study finds.<\/p>\n Cyberbullying is bullying<\/a> online rather than in person. It’s so pervasive that pediatricians should routinely ask their patients about it as part of psychological assessment, the researchers said.<\/p>\n “Parents, teachers and health professionals need to be aware of possible PTSD<\/a> symptoms in young people involved in cyberbullying,” said study author Ana Pascual-S\u00e1nchez and colleagues. She’s in the psychiatry division at Imperial College London.<\/p>\n Cyberbullying among teenagers is estimated to range from 10% to 40%, said the researchers. Because it can be done anonymously day or night, it poses special risks, they noted.<\/p>\n For the study, Pascual-S\u00e1nchez and her team collected data on more than 2,200 11- to 19-year-olds from four London schools who were surveyed about their experiences.<\/p>\n The survey found that 46% had a history of any kind of bullying<\/a>: 17% were victims; 12% were perpetrators; and 4% were both.<\/p>\n Traditional bullying was more common than cyberbullying, the researchers found.<\/p>\n Still, about 13% of the teens<\/a> had been cyberbullied; 8.5% had bullied others online; and 4% had been both victims and perpetrators.<\/p>\n About 16% of the kids had been bullied in person; 12% had bullied others in person; and 7% had been both victims and perpetrators, the researchers found.<\/p>\n There was some overlap between types of bullying.<\/p>\n About 1,500 kids completed a PTSD<\/a> assessment that screened for intrusive thoughts and avoidance behaviors. The researchers found that those who had been victims of cyberbullying were more likely to have symptoms of PTSD<\/a> (35%) compared to 29% of cyberbullies, and 28% of those who were both cyberbullied and cyberbullies.<\/p>\n This study can’t prove that cyberbullying causes PTSD, only that they seem to be associated, the researchers said.<\/p>\n The report was published online June 23 in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood<\/i>.<\/p>\n “Despite cyberbullying being less frequent than traditional bullying, it is noteworthy that more than a third of the cyberbullies were not involved in traditional bullying, whereas a huge majority of the cyberbully victims were involved in traditional bullying, mainly as traditional victims or [as both victim and perpetrator],” the authors said in a journal news release.<\/p>\n “This suggests that the anonymity provided to perpetrators online may constitute a new platform for bullying to occur,” they added.<\/p>\n — Steven Reinberg<\/p>\n![\"MedicalNews\"](\"https:\/\/images.medicinenet.com\/images\/HealthDay\/healthday.png\")
Copyright \u00a9 2020 HealthDay. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/images.medicinenet.com\/images\/quiz\/panic-disorder\/panic-disorder-s1.jpg\"\/)