Longitudinal and reciprocal relationships between bullying, victimization and depressive symptoms in adolescents

Intimidation and depressive symptoms are often associated. However, the direction of the relationship between these two variables is not clearly established in the scientific literature. This 6-year longitudinal study aimed to test the direction of the links between bullying and depressive symptoms, and between victimization and depressive symptoms, in a sample of 498 adolescents from Grade 6 to Grade 11. The results of the cross-lagged panel analyzes show that the relationships between bullying behaviours and depressive symptoms differ by gender. For girls, depressive symptoms in Grade 6 and Grade 7 are associated with higher level of bullying behaviours a year later. In boys, depressive symptoms are associated with bullying behaviours later on, namely between Grade 8 and Grade 9. For victimization, no gender difference is observed. For both boys and girls, being bullied in Grade 6 and Grade 8 seems to be associated with higher depressive symptoms a year later. These findings highlight the importance of intervening with adolescent victims of bullying to prevent the development of depressive symptoms. The results also suggest to intervene with youth with depressive symptoms to prevent later bullying behaviour, particularly during the primary-secondary transition for girls and later for boys.