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The Impact of Cyberbullying on Physical and Psychological Health of Arab American Adolescents

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Abstract

Utilizing a community-based, cross-sectional design, the present study explored Arab American adolescents’ experiences in cyberbullying and its effect on their health. A convenience sample of 150 Arab American adolescents, ages 12–16, were recruited from two community centers located at Southeast Michigan. The survey focused on cyberbullying victimization and perpetration in the past year including frequencies and types of technology used. Thirty-four percent of adolescents reported cyberbullying victimization and 26.7% reported cyberbullying perpetration at least once in the past year. Males were significantly more involved in both victimization and perpetration. Text messaging, Instagram and Facebook were most commonly used. Perpetration predicted physical complaints (p = .001), whereas, victimization predicted psychological distress (p = .014) after controlling for all demographic variables. Arab American adolescents reported significant cyberbullying perpetration and victimization. Perpetrators experienced more physical symptoms while victims experienced more psychological distress. Implications for future research are discussed.

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services and the Islamic Center of Detroit for facilitating access to potential participants; Jehad Najda and Kshama Vaghela for their assistance with data collection; Beth Langelier for her editorial support.

Funding

This research was supported by the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan Foundation Student Award, Wayne State University Graduate School and College of Nursing Dissertation Research Support.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Nursing, Wayne State University, 368 Cohn, 5557 Cass Avenue, Detroit, MI, 48202, USA

    Maha Albdour & Hossein Yarandi

  2. School of Social Work, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, USA

    Jun Sung Hong

  3. Department of Social Welfare, Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul, South Korea

    Jun Sung Hong

  4. College of Nursing, University of Toledo, Toledo, OH, USA

    Linda Lewin

Authors
  1. Maha Albdour
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  2. Jun Sung Hong
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  3. Linda Lewin
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  4. Hossein Yarandi
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Correspondence to Maha Albdour.

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Ethical Approval

The study was approved by the first and last authors’ Institutional Review Board and met all ethical standards, such as voluntary participation, confidentiality, and limited risk. The second and third author did not participate in the data collection.

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Albdour, M., Hong, J.S., Lewin, L. et al. The Impact of Cyberbullying on Physical and Psychological Health of Arab American Adolescents. J Immigrant Minority Health 21, 706–715 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10903-018-00850-w

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