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Mental health vulnerabilities increase risk for exposure to bullying

Using a multi-polygenic score approach, researchers found that pre-existing mental health vulnerabilities were risk factors for exposure to bullying.

Previous observational phenotypic studies have found multiple individual vulnerabilities and traits that may evoke bullying, including pre-existing mental health issues, Jean-Baptiste Pingault, PhD, from the department of clinical, educational and health psychology, University College London, and colleagues wrote in JAMA Psychiatry. However, there has been no systematic investigation of independent risk factors reflecting a wide range of potentially overlapping vulnerabilities and traits.

Pingault and colleagues used 35 polygenic scores as genetic proxies to study the role of a range of individual mental health vulnerabilities and traits related to cognition, personality, physical measures and negative controls as risk factors for experiencing bullying in childhood and adolescence.

They determined exposure to bullying based on child reports at ages 8, 10 and 13 years in children from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, calculating the mean Bullying and Friendship Interview Schedule (BFIS) score across ages. To test the link between indexed traits and exposure to bullying, they fitted single and multi–polygenic score regression models.

Overall, 5,028 genotyped children with data on exposure to bullying were included in analysis and 4,391 reported some form of exposure to bullying.

Of the 35 polygenic scores, analysis revealed that 10 were independently linked with experiencing bullying:

• depression diagnosis (standardized b = 0.083; 95% CI, 0.054-0.112);
• depression symptoms (standardized b = 0.042; 95% CI, 0.014-0.071);
• well-being (standardized b = –0.036; 95% CI, –0.064 to –0.007);
• ADHD (standardized b = 0.085; 95% CI, 0.056-0.113);
• schizophrenia (standardized b = 0.038, 95% CI, 0.008-0.068);
• IQ (standardized b = –0.047; 95% CI, –0.075 to –0.019);
• educational attainment (standardized b = –0.042; 95% CI, –0.07 to –0.013);
• risk taking (standardized b = 0.052; 95% CI, 0.023-0.08);
• BMI (standardized b = 0.055; 95% CI, 0.027-0.083); and
• extreme BMI (standardized b = 0.039; 95% CI, 0.01-0.067).

However, multivariable analyses indicated that five polygenic scores were tied to exposure to bullying, with the largest associations observed in genetic risk relating to mental health vulnerabilities: depression (standardized b = 0.065; 95% CI, 0.035-0.095) and ADHD (standardized b = 0.063; 95% CI, 0.035-0.091). The other three were: risk taking (standardized b = 0.041; 95% CI, 0.013-0.069), BMI (standardized b = 0.036; 95% CI, 0.008-0.064) and IQ (standardized b =–0.031; 95% CI, –0.059 to 0.003).

“After sufficiently large genotyped samples with data on bullying become available, future studies could use genetic variants to refine pathways within a structural equation modeling framework and explore possible gene × environment interactions,” Pingault and colleagues wrote. “Such research could help improve the mechanistic understanding and identify protective contributing factors (eg, social support, mental health intervention, and school type) that may mitigate some of the effects of pre-existing vulnerabilities.” – by Savannah Demko

Disclosure: The authors report no relevant financial disclosures.