Bullying Victimization and Psychiatric Symptoms Among Syrian Adolescent Refugees in Southeast Turkey: A Structural Equation Modeling Study

Objective

The purpose of this study was to compare the peer bullying of refugee and non-refugee adolescents, and to explore the association between bullying victimization and psychiatric symptoms among Syrian adolescent refugees in the Southeast Anatolia region of Turkey. Methods: The sample of the study consists of 217 adolescents in the 13–17 age group who are school-going, 102 refugee adolescents, and 115 non-refugee adolescents. The study data was obtained using the Sociodemographic Characteristics Questionnaire developed by the researchers, Olweus Bully/Victim Questionnaire (OBVQ) and Depression Anxiety Stress Scale 42 (DASS-42). A structural equation model was used to assess the association between bullying victimization and depressive symptoms, while also considering mediation by stress and anxiety. Results: In this study, 44.1% of refugee adolescents reported experiencing at least one bullying victimization, while this rate was 27.8% in the non-refugee group, and this difference was found statistically significant. The logistic regression analysis revealed that poor school performance was a risk factor for bullying victimization in refugee adolescent. Moreover, the structural equation model analysis revealed that bullying victimization significantly increased the stress level in refugee adolescents, and depressive symptoms were significantly affected by stress and anxiety levels. Conclusion: Taking into consideration that bullying victimization is a significant problem among Syrian refugee adolescents; anti-bullying programmes should be implemented as this may improve the mental health of Syrian refugee adolescents.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank to Dr. Nihat Kilicaslan who is the radiologist of Radiology department at Mehmet Akif İnan Training and Research Hospital, Sanliurfa/Turkey for assistance in manuscript preparation.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

AUTHOR CONTRIBUTION

Fethiye Kılıçaslan: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Supervision, Resources, Validation, Visualization, Writing—original draft, Writing—review & editing. Hülya Karataş: Formal analysis, Methodology, Validation, Visualization, Writing—original draft, Writing—review & editing. Abdullah Solmaz: Data curation, Investigation, Writing—original draft, Writing—review & editing.

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT

Data available on request from the authors.

ETHICS COMMITTEE APPROVAL

This study was approved by Harran University Faculty of Medicine Clinical Research Ethics Committee (dated: 24/06/2021 and numbered 40741), and the Sanliurfa Provincial Directorate of Migration Management (date 29/07/2021 and numbered 49199). Before the study, the children and their parents were informed and their verbal and written consent was taken. Participation was based on volunteerism and no identifying information or personal data of the participants were taken during the research. The other obtained data were used only for scientific purposes.