Bullying victimization and later anxiety and depression among pre-adolescents in Switzerland

Abstract

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between bullying victimization at age 8 and anxiety and depression at age 11 in a large and ethnically heterogeneous sample from Zurich, Switzerland.
Design/methodology/approach - The authors present new analyses from the Zurich Project on the Social Development of Children and Youth (z-proso) on the relationship between bullying victimization at age 8 and anxiety and depression at age 11.
Findings - Different measures of bullying victimization significantly predicted later anxiety and depression. Differences existed between measures of anxiety and depression from different informants.
Originality/value - First, the paper provides readers with an overview of the victimization data collected in z-proso among an ethnically heterogeneous population sample of children in Zurich, Switzerland. Second, it provides results of bivariate and multivariate analyses on the relationship between bullying victimization and internalizing behavior. Third, the authors investigate if their results are robust across different measures of bullying victimization and across measures of anxiety and depression from different informants.