Anxiety and depression caused by childhood bullying decline over time

A new UCL-led study has provided the strongest evidence to date that exposure to bullying causes mental health issues such as anxiety years later. The study, published today in JAMA Psychiatry and funded by MQ: Transforming Mental Health and the Economic and Social Research Council, found that the detrimental effects of bullying decreased over time, which the authors say shows the potential for resilience in children exposed to bullying. "Previous studies have shown that bullied children are more likely to suffer mental health issues, but give little evidence of a causal link, as pre-existing vulnerabilities can make children both more likely to be bullied and experience worse mental health outcomes. We used a robust study design to identify causation," said the study's lead author, Dr Jean-Baptiste Pingault (UCL Psychology & Language Sciences). The study involved 11,108 participants from the Twins Early Development Study (TEDS), which is based at King's College London. By surveying twins, researchers were able to look at the associations between bullying and mental health outcomes, and then account for the confounding effects of their genes and shared environmental influences because they studied both monozygotic ("identical") twins who have matching genes and home environments and dizygotic ("non-identical") twins, who don't share all of their genes, but have matching home environments. Both children and their parents filled out questionnaire: at age 11 and 14 they were asked about peer victimization, and at 11 and 16 they were asked about mental health difficulties.