Description
Both bullying and illegal substance use are significant public health issues among the adolescent population in the United States. The purpose of this study was to examine the association, if any, between bullying victimization and illegal substance use among U.S. high school students. In the 2013 National Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS), more than a quarter of students reported they had experienced bullying victimization in the last 12 months via either traditional or electronic means. In the 2013 National YRBS, 49.8% of high school students reported they had used at least one type of illegal substance before in their lives. This current study assessed marijuana, methamphetamines, cocaine, heroin, ecstasy and prescription drugs without a prescription. An analysis was performed on a subset of the 2013 National YRBS to assess the associations between bullying victimization and illegal substance use. The relation between bullying and illegal substance use was found to have evidence of modification by sex (P-value= 0.005); data were therefore stratified by males and females. The final multivariate logistic regression showed that grade level, ethnicity, ever cigarette use and ever alcohol use were all associated with illegal substance use in both males and females. After adjusting for other variables in the model, being a victim of bullying was not statistically significantly associated with illegal substance use among males (P-value= 0.414).However, among females, the odds of using illegal substances were 1.4 times higher among those who were victims of bullying than non-victims (CI95= 1.209, .628).A possible hypothesis for the sex difference is that females are likely to be more sensitive to bullying than males and may be more likely to report being bullied. The results of this secondary analysis have important implications for the prevention of illegal substance use in our national high school population. This study's findings point to student vulnerabilities in certain aspects such as sex, ethnicity and grade for substance use interventions to target
