Consequences of bullying victimization in childhood and adolescence: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Table 3 Associations between bullying victimization in children and adolescents and other health outcomes

	Data points	Pooled OR	95%CI lower bound	95%CI upper bound	Cochran’s Q	I² (%)	Test for heterogeneity (P value)
Somatic symptoms
Unspecified psychosomatic symptoms	25	2.00	1.54	2.60	232.02	89.66	< 0.01
Stomach ache	25	1.76	1.53	2.03	138.73	82.7	< 0.01
Sleeping difficulties	24	1.73	1.46	2.05	574.91	96	< 0.01
Headache	26	1.64	1.38	1.94	169.16	85.22	< 0.01
Bedwetting	3	2.51	1.44	4.37	4.93	59.45	0.08
Feeling tired	2	2.68	1.39	5.19	1.22	17.87	0.27
Poor appetite	2	2.23	1.60	3.12	0	0	0.95
Back pain	8	1.67	1.43	1.95	73.53	90.48	< 0.01
Skin problems	1	1.82	1.33	251	-	-	-
Dizziness	9	1.64	1.38	1.95	76.57	89.55	< 0.01
Eating and weight related problems
Binge eating	2	2.66	1.68	4.22	0.57	0	0.45
Non-diet soft drink consumption	1	1.21	1.04	1.41	-	-	-
Skips breakfast	6	1.41	1.20	1.65	11.89	57.94	0.04
Underweight
Pooling all	2	1.27	0.73	2.21	0	0	0.96
Sex
Male	1	1.28	0.69	2.37	-	-	-
Female	1	1.24	0.19	2.29	-	-	-
Overweight
Pooling all	14	1.68	1.21	2.33	82.69	84.28	< 0.01
Study type
Retrospective/cross- sectional	12	1.99	1.39	2.85	65.45	83.19	< 0.01
Prospective cohort	2	0.98	0.64	1.49	1.92	47.97	0.17
Sex
Male	7	1.22	0.99	1.49	8.04	25.4	0.23
Female	7	2.22	1.28	3.84	50.17	88.04	< 0.01
Severity of bullying
Sometimes	2	1.32	1.00	1.74	0.09	0	0.77
Frequent	6	1.14	0.88	1.47	7.37	32.2	0.19
Obese
Pooling all	13	1.78	1.42	2.21	14.68	18.28	0.26
Study type
Retrospective/cross-sectional	10	1.97	1.53	2.53	7.22	0	0.61
Prospective cohort	3	1.57	0.89	2.77	6.89	70.97	0.03
Sex
Male	6	1.94	1.45	2.60	4.88	0	0.43
Female	6	2.15	1.57	2.94	2.22	0	0.82
Severity of bullying
Sometimes	2	1.63	1.11	2.38	0.52	0	0.47
Frequent	6	2.09	1.59	2.75	5.26	4.86	0.39
Sexual behaviour problems
Teen parent	5	1.26	0.81	1.97	15.11	73.53	< 0.01
Risky sexual behaviour	4	2.28	0.95	5.48	23.43	87.2	< 0.01
Early onset of sexual activities	3	1.44	0.90	2.30	7.38	72.91	0.02
Pooling all	12	1.51	1.01	2.25	85.66	87.16	< 0.01
Study type
Retrospective/cross-sectional	3	1.77	0.42	7.52	54.97	96.36	< 0.01
Prospective cohort	9	1.34	0.98	1.84	23.88	66.51	< 0.01
Severity of bullying
Sometimes	2	0.81	0.51	1.28	2.46	59.32	0.12
Frequent	4	2.38	1.05	5.41	27.55	89.11	< 0.01
Health services utilised
Pooling all	16	1.20	0.99	1.45	34.37	56.36	< 0.01
Study type
Retrospective/cross-sectional	14	1.14	0.94	1.39	27.91	53.42	0.01
Prospective cohort	2	1.54	0.65	3.61	4.43	77.43	0.04
Sex
Male	7	1.17	0.95	1.43	3.54	0	0.74
Female	7	1.41	1.12	1.77	11.16	46.25	0.08
General medication use
Pooling all	12	1.16	0.80	1.70	117.98	90.68	< 0.01
Study type
Retrospective/cross-sectional	11	0.99	0.56	1.75	112.26	91.09	< 0.01
Prospective cohort	1	1.67	1.09	2.58	-	-	-
Sex
Male
Medication for headache	2	1.43	1.06	1.93	2.34	57.21	0.13
Medication for stomach-ache	2	1.09	0.72	1.65	1.9	47.5	0.17
Female
Medication for headache	2	1.19	0.98	1.45	1.33	24.79	0.25
Medication for stomach-ache	2	1.23	1.01	1.5	0.27	0	0.61
Severity of bullying
Sometimes	5	1.26	0.99	1.59	15.46	74.13	< 0.01
Frequent	5	1.72	1.11	2.67	24.9	83.93	< 0.01
Over the counter drug misuse	3	0.95	0.19	4.66	76.34	97.38	< 0.01
Psychotropic medication use
Pooling all	13	1.28	0.72	2.26	205.76	94.17	< 0.01
Study type
Retrospective/cross-sectional	11	0.95	0.32	2.8	195.34	94.88	< 0.01
Prospective cohort	2	1.31	0.66	2.6	5.61	82.18	0.02
Sex
Male
Medication for nervousness	2	1.32	0.42	4.1	14.98	93.32	< 0.01
Medication for sleeping	2	1.89	1.33	2.67	1.59	37.28	0.21
Female
Medication for nervousness	2	1.97	1.49	2.59	1.06	5.88	0.3
Medication for sleeping	2	1.83	1.42	2.36	0.27	0	0.6
Severity of bullying
Sometimes	6	1.66	1.26	2.18	18.54	73.04	< 0.01
Frequent	6	1.88	1.17	3.03	31.93	84.34	< 0.01
Prescription drug misuse	3	0.92	0.17	5.07	88.16	97.73	< 0.01
Poor general health
Pooling all	29	1.83	1.45	2.31	133.31	79	< 0.01
Study type
Retrospective/cross-sectional	22	1.71	1.21	2.42	112.06	81.26	< 0.01
Prospective cohort	7	1.56	1.07	2.28	19.72	69.57	< 0.01
Sex
Male	9	1.95	1.16	3.27	20.5	60.98	0.01
Female	9	2.36	1.11	5.04	52.78	84.84	< 0.01
Severity of bullying
Sometimes	4	2.16	1.10	4.26	9.15	67.21	0.03
Frequent	4	6.96	2.17	22.35	16.72	82.05	< 0.01