Diagnostic criteria for postbullying disorder: A phenomenological research design of bullying victims

• Published date: 01 August 2020
• Author: Boshra A. Arnout,Abeer S. Alshehri,Fatma Y. Al‐Qadimi,Aeshah M. Assiri
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2063
• Date: 01 August 2020

ACADEMIC PAPER

Diagnostic criteria for postbullying disorder:

A phenomenological research design of bullying victims

Boshra A. Arnout

1,2

| Abeer S. Alshehri

1

| Aeshah M. Assiri

1

| Fatma Y. Al-Qadimi

1

1

Department of Psychology, King Khalid

University, Abha, Saudi Arabia

2

Department of Psychology, Zagazig

University, Zagazig, Egypt

Correspondence

Boshra A. Arnout, Department of Psychology,

King Khalid University, Abha, Saudi Arabia.

Email: prof.arnout74@gmail.com

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the diagnostic criteria for postbullying disorder, which

enable the persons who provide therapy services for bullying victims, because until

now, there are no criteria to help clinicians diagnose postbullying disorder. This study

employed phenomenological research design. Purposive sampling was adopted to

sample six university students who are experiencing the bullying behavior from their

colleagues in the university campus. The results revealed that there are eight criteria

for diagnosing postbullying disorder among victims. These are trauma exposure,

symptoms of penetration, avoidance, perception and negative emotions, self-

destructive behavior, dysfunction due to symptoms, duration (1 month or more) of

symptoms, and the criteria that the bullying symptoms cannot be attributed to the

use of substances or drugs of another medical conditions. Results shed new light on

the diagnostic criteria for postbullying disorder and proved the usefulness of these

criteria in understanding the development of the postbullying symptoms among vic-

tims. These findings enable schools and universities to plan psychotherapy interven-

tions for victims.

KEYWORDS

bullying victims, diagnostic criteria, phenomenological design, postbullying disorder,

qualitative method, successive bullying circle

1|INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

Bullying is one of the most important problems experienced in educa-

tional institutions around the world, as it is a widespread problem.

This problem not only harms the bullying himself and their victims but

also adversely affects students' mental health, the general educational

climate, and the ability of students to learn, which reduces the ability

of educational institutions to achieve their goals. School bullying

affects the psychological and social security structure of the school

community. This phenomenon is growing hidden in the light of the

neglect of parents and schools to cope this problem. This negligence

has its causes that may be due to the difficulty of diagnosis the

bullying as a result of the lack of diagnostic criteria that help to plan

appropriate psychological treatment services for bullies and their

victims.

There are many forms and types of bullying; whatever its form or

place of occurrence, it may be one or both of the following: traditional

bullying and electronic bullying. Traditional bullying refers to physical

bullying (pushing/hitting), verbal (teasing/calling name), and relational

forms (spreading rumors/social exclusion), whereas electronic bully-

ing is the exposure to all forms of bullying behavior through modern

social media by an individual or a group of individuals (Wang,

Iannotti, & Nasel, 2009). Slonje, Smith, and Fisen (2013) referred that

the Internet provides us with more possibilities than ever before,

Received: 29 October 2019 Accepted: 21 November 2019

DOI: 10.1002/pa.2063

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any

medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.

© 2020 The Authors. Journal of Public Affairs published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

J Public Affairs. 2020;20:e2063. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa 1of10

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2063