Psychiatric symptoms as predictors of latent classes of bullying victimization and perpetration among early adolescents.

The scientific literature firmly states that bullying can affect adolescent mental health, however, it lacks longitudinal studies on potential psychological risk factors of bullying involvement, especially in less developed countries. This longitudinal study with 1,739 7th-grade students of 30 Brazilian schools aimed to analyze how psychiatric symptomatology can predict bullying patterns among adolescents. We conducted a latent class analysis to identify patterns of bullying victimization and perpetration. Multinomial logistic regressions were conducted to assess if baseline psychiatric symptoms affected bullying latent classes at nine-month follow-up. Analyses considered the complex multilevel data structure and were adjusted for sociodemographic variables. We found three bullying latent classes: minimal involvement, victims, and bully-victims. Internalizing psychiatric symptomatology predicted the probability of belonging to the "victims" class. Externalizing symptoms increased the future probability of belonging to the "bully-victims" class. These findings are independent of sociodemografic variables, such as age, socioeconomic status, and sex. Conduct problems were a risk factor for all bullying latent classes. Therefore, bullying prevention actions should target children and early adolescents with internalizing and externalizing symptoms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]