| सारांश: | Cyberbullying is a growing menace especially in countries like Malaysia which
highly focuses on digital industry development. Adolescents are at greater risk since their
higher usage of internet mainly on the grounds of social networking. The aim of this study
is to describe cyberbullying through various factors and the relationship with social and
emotional competence (SEC) using the General Aggression Model as a theoretical
framework. The study, conducted through June 2019 to November 2019, adopted a cross
sectional study design, among 889 adolescents aged 13 and 14 years old of national
secondary schools in Penang, Malaysia. Two-stage random sampling was performed to
select schools and study population. Cyberbullying was measured using the European
Cyberbullying Intervention Project Questionnaire (ECIPQ) in three distinct domains
namely cyber perpetration, cyber victimization and cyber victim-perpetration in the past
one month. Cyberbullying prevalence in the past month was 16.6%, 5.8% and 15.0% for
cyber victimization, cyber perpetration and cyber victim-perpetration respectively.
Infrequent cyberbullying episodes accounted for more than 70.0% of students being at
risk to cyberbullying in the past three months. The 14-year-olds were more prone to
subject themselves as cyber perpetrators (AOR=2.30, 95%CI 1.09, 4.87). Boys were more
likely to be victimized (AOR = 1.90, 95% CI 1.23, 2.95) and at higher risk of becoming
online perpetrators themselves (AOR=1.54, 95%CI 1.09, 2.52). With regards to internet
use pattern, frequent internet users, those who own an electronic device and those who
use the social media and instant messaging apps are more prone to cyberbullying. While
having poor mental health was significantly associated with all categories of
cyberbullying, cyber victim-perpetrators pose the highest odds of depressive symptoms
(AOR=2.15, 95%CI 1.16, 3.99). Traditional bully victim, perpetrator and victim-
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perpetrator were at risk to becoming cyber victims (AOR=3.79, 95%CI 1.93, 7.42), cyber
perpetrators (AOR=5.61, 95%CI 1.65, 19.04) and cyber victim-perpetrators (AOR=4.55,
95%CI 1.61, 12.88) respectively. Perceived family support is associated with cyber
perpetrators (Mean=4.38 vs 4.13, p<0.001) and victim-perpetrators (Mean=4.38 vs 4.15,
p<0.001) while perceived peer support is associated with cyber perpetrators (Mean=4.20
vs 3.99, p<0.05) and victim-perpetrators (Mean=4.20 vs 4.03, p<0.05). Adjusted for all
factors, SEC is associated with cybervictimization (AOR=1.04, 95%CI 1.01, 1.06) and
cyber victim-perpetration (AOR=0.95, 95%CI 0.93, 0.98). The findings highlight that
cyberbullying is a common phenomenon among school-going adolescents of which seven
in every ten adolescents reported being at risk to cyberbullying. Factors such as age,
gender, ethnicity, internet use pattern, mental health traditional bullying, family and peer
support are found to be associated with cyberbullying. High social and emotional
competence was found to be a significant protective factor against cyberbullying among
adolescents. Skills-based interventions that could increase social and emotional
competency of adolescents are important to be considered as possible solutions to reduce
cyberbullying. The study findings further recommend cyberbullying to be given equal
importance as emphasis to digital development and be addressed through collaborative
efforts of various stakeholders such as public health, education, and multimedia agencies.
SEC-based interventions must be delivered through universal prevention and whole of
organization approaches to ensure effectiveness and sustainability.
Keywords: cyberbullying, socio-emotional competence, adolescents, generalized
aggression model.
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