Abstract:

The purpose of this study was to examine the relation between school bullying/ victimization and symptoms of anxiety disorders in preadolescents. Participants were 255 fifth- and sixth-grade students from primary schools of Attica region. They completed the Greek versions of the following measures: the Revised Olweus Bully/Victim Questionnaire (Olweus, 2006), the Social Anxiety Scale for Children- Revised (LaGreca & Stone, 1993), the Children’s Revised Impact of Event Scale (Smith, Perrin, Dyregrov, & Yule, 2003), and the Psychosomatic Symptom Score (Aro, Paronen, & Aro, 1987). Social anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and psychosomatic symptoms were all found to be positively correlated to both the tendency to be victimized and the tendency to bully others. The more the tendency to be victimized increased, the more students complained of psychosomatic symptoms and manifested clinically significant social anxiety and post-traumatic stress symptoms. The tendency to bully others could be predicted by psychosomatic symptoms and mothers’ country of birth. Furthermore, compared to non bullies-non victims, victims were found to score higher on all anxiety measures. Implications of the results for bullying prevention and intervention are discussed.

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