Mental health of psychiatric outpatients bullied in childhood

Abstract

Bullying hurts – even many years later

This thesis indicates that bullying by peers in school during childhood is associated withmental health problems in adulthood; almost50 per cent of the 160 psychiatric outpatients reported bullying by peers.

As adults, those bullied in childhood demonstrated higher psychiatric symptom levels, lower self-esteem and more external locus of control. They also reported more bulimianervosa. In addition, they were often singles, and, they had lower levels of education.Bullying by peers was also associated with other types of maltreatment in childhood. Male outpatients bullied by peers in school often grew up without biological fathers. Victimized female outpatients bullied in school reported more childhood abuse and neglect. Overprotective fathers were more common in outpatients with bulimia nervosa, and long-term associations were found between overprotective mothers and poor self-esteem.The findings in this thesis reveal that bullying in childhood is far from harmless and may have destructive long-term consequences.