Open AccessMaternal Awareness of Adolescent Bullying Victimization in a Low-Income Context
Author(s) -
Marlene Apolinário Vieira,
Bjørn Helge Handegård,
John A. Rønning,
Cristiane S. Duarte,
Jair de Jesus Mari,
Isabel Altenfelder Santos Bordin
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
adolescent psychiatry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2210-6774
pISSN - 2210-6766
DOI - 10.2174/2210676609666190808094820
Subject(s) - psychology , socioeconomic status , context (archaeology) , anxiety , logistic regression , poison control , injury prevention , suicide prevention , clinical psychology , daughter , developmental psychology , medicine , psychiatry , population , environmental health , paleontology , evolutionary biology , biology
Background: Adolescents and parents often disagree about the perception of bullyingvictimization since adults tend to underestimate its occurrence. Objective: This study identifies factors that can influence maternal perception of bullyingvictimization experienced by her son/daughter in the past 12 months. Methods: This cross-sectional study involved a representative sample of in-school adolescents(n=669, 11-15-years) living in Itaboraí city, Brazil (mean age±SE: 13.01±0.07 years;51.7% females). A 3-stage probabilistic sampling procedure (random selection of censusunits, eligible households and target child) generated sampling weights. Trained lay interviewersindividually applied semi-structured questionnaires to mothers and adolescents inthe households. Multivariable logistic regression analysis examined factors potentially influencingmaternal perception of bullying victimization experienced by her son/daughter: adolescentgender and age, adolescent self-perceived bullying victimization, exposure to severephysical punishment by parents, internalizing/externalizing behaviour problems identified bythe Youth Self-Report/YSR, maternal education and maternal anxiety/depression identifiedby the 20-item Self-Reporting Questionnaire/SRQ-20. Results: Univariable logistic regression analysis identified a strong association between adolescentself-perceived bullying victimization and maternal perception of bullying victimizationexperienced by her son/daughter. Multivariable models showed that adolescent perceptioninfluenced maternal perception when adolescents had no clinical internalizing behaviourproblems and when mothers had higher education. Conclusion: Anxious/depressive adolescents may hide victimization incidents, while thosewith no problems probably reveal these incidents to the mother. Considering that maternallow education is an indicator of low socioeconomic status, which is associated with multiplestressors, less educated mothers may be more likely to interpret these incidents as a commonpart of growing-up.