The longitudinal relationship between bullying victimization and depressive symptoms for middle school students: A cross-lagged panel network analysis

Previous research about the relationship between bullying victimization and adolescent depressive symptoms was mostly based on latent variable modeling. This study, instead, applied item-level analysis to explore the cross-sectional relationship and longitudinal development between bullying victimization and adolescent depressive symptoms with network models. This study used Olweus Bully/Victim Questionnaire and Children's Depression Inventory to collect data. A total of 1911 middle school students (55.2 % female; Mage = 12.98 ± 0.60 at T1) completed measures on four occasions at 6-month intervals. Nine network analysis models were employed to better understand the relationship between variables. (1) "Being threatened or intimidated" was the most influential bullying behavior within bullying victimization items; (2) "being excluded", "being spoken ill of" and "negative mood" were the bridge items between bullying victimization and adolescent depressive symptoms; (3) the most influential bullying victimization item on adolescent depressive symptoms was "being robbed or blackmailed" for short-term development and "being excluded" for long-term development. While the most affected depressive symptom by bullying victimization was "anhedonia" for short-term development and "negative mood" for long-term development. Self-report measure is adopted for all variables in the study, and there may be some deviation. Due to the questionnaires, the items of bullying behaviors and depressive symptoms included in the network analysis are limited. From the item level, this study found more specific relationships between bullying victimization and adolescent depressive symptoms. These findings highlight depressed mood and anhedonia are depressive symptoms that should be more paid attention to in clinical intervention for bullying victims.