A longitudinal study on within-person developmental relations between bullying and cyberbullying with substance use in adolescents

Bullying, cyberbullying and substance use are prevalent problem behaviors in adolescents, with adverse consequences. Although previous research has provided important insights into their connections, it remains to be established if there are directional relations in which bullying and cyberbullying are predictors of substance use or whether their relation primarily reflects a common dependence on individual difference factors that tend to be stable within people but vary across people. The current study thus delineated between-individual and within-individual longitudinal relations between bullying, cyberbullying, and substance use in adolescents using a prospective longitudinal study with three data collection points. The sample included 1,481 students enrolled in primary and secondary schools in Spain. Data were collected through a survey with validated questionnaires. Analyses were performed using ALT-SRs to examine the within-person reciprocal longitudinal relations between bullying/cyberbullying and substance use. Regarding the within-person relations between substance use, bullying, and cyberbullying, only bullying perpetration in 10–17-years olds predicted substance use in 11–17-years olds. We also found a between-person relation between cybervictimization and substance use, and significant cross-sectional and longitudinal correlations among bullying, cyberbullying and substance use in most waves. These results should be taken into account for policy and practice against bullying, cyberbullying, and substance use. Comprehensive interventions that target all these problem behaviors should be designed, implemented and evaluated. More longitudinal research on the relation between these and other problem behaviors should be conducted.