WASHINGTON: A new study led by researchers found that children who had been exposed to cyberbullying had significantly greater severity of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) than those who had not been subjected to the same. Cyberbullying has a great impact on triggering symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and depression in young people who were inpatients at an adolescent psychiatric hospital.

The co-author of the paper, Dr. Philip D. Harvey said, “Even against a backdrop of emotional challenges in the kids we studied, we noted cyberbullying had an adverse impact. It’s real and should be assessed. Cyberbullying is possibly more pernicious than other forms of bullying because of its reach.” The study published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry suggested that children who have a history of being abused were more likely to be cyberbullied. This leads to the take that, assessments for childhood trauma should also be included while assessing cyberbullying.

Likewise, children who report being cyberbullied should be assessed for a history of childhood trauma. Dr. Harvey further continued, “The bullying can be viral and persistent. To really be bullying, it has to be personal – a directly negative comment attempting to make the person feel bad.”

A detailed study on cyberbullying confirmed some of the major facts of cyberbullying, that includes being regularly online on social media weren’t the factors of cyberbullying. The major stress was on the fact that adolescents who have been bullied in the past had a higher risk of being bullied again The study was conducted at a suburban psychiatric hospital in Westchester County, New York, asked participants to complete two childhood trauma questionnaires and a cyberbullying questionnaire.

The result showed that twenty percent of participants were cyberbullied within the last two months before their admission. Half of the participants were bullied by text messages and a half on Facebook. Transmitted pictures or videos, Instagram, instant messages and chat rooms were other cyberbullying vehicles. The results led Dr Harvey to encourage psychologists, psychiatrists, and other counselors to frequently ask young people if they were abused or traumatized when they were younger.

(with inputs from Agencies)