What are the influences of interventions in minimising the bullying phenomenon amongst secondary school students aged 11–16 years?

Abstract

Abstract Background Bullying is an important public health issue experienced by different age groups in schools, particularly teenagers. Although numerous epidemiological studies have reported bullying in a diversity of aspects worldwide, there is a lack of studies on anti-bullying intervention programs amongst secondary school students. Hence, this study aimed to comprehensively review and compare the published literature about effective intervention programs, and how they affect the reduction of bullying prevalence amongst secondary school students. Methods A systematic review of the literature was performed via searches of PsycINFO, MEDLINE, CINAHL and PubMed databases to identify all relevant articles published in peer-reviewed journals dating back 10 years. Furthermore, this review used the following primary search terms: “intervention strategies” “interventions” “strategies”, “bullying”, “secondary school students”. Likewise, the PICO framework established a set of questions, and PRISMA model techniques were utilised to extract the relevant articles in accordance with the inclusion and exclusion criteria. This review utilised the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) Critical Appraisal Checklist for the following four research designs: cohort study, quasi-experimental, experimental design and randomised controlled trial. Results A total of 608 studies were identified after deduplication, with ten studies meeting the inclusion criteria. The total sample size was 30,780 students (control group = 9,024 students; intervention groups = 10,272 students; both groups = 9,024 students), who were recruited from a total of 149 different schools in eight different settings, including Finland, Spain, Malaysia, England, Hong Kong, Italy and Australia. The findings of the literature review highlighted the effectiveness of various interventions. Specifically, the four most widely implemented anti-bullying programs were KiVA, NoTrap!, OBPP and ViSC, and all four programs incorporated quite similar intervention components. Of the four most common interventions, OBPP was considered to be the most effective, as it is responsible for reducing school bullying perpetration.