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Bullying Victimization and Sexual Wellbeing in Sexually Active Heterosexual, Cisgender and Sexual/Gender Minority Adolescents: The Mediating Role of Emotion Regulation

  • Empirical Research
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Abstract

Bullying victimization is prevalent in adolescence and associated with adverse consequences on physical and psychological wellbeing, paricularly in sexual and gender minority youth. However, little is known about its associations with sexual wellbeing and the underlying mechanisms that could explain this association. The present study assessed the associations between bullying victimization and sexual wellbeing (sexual satisfaction, sexual desire/arousal and orgasmic function difficulties, sexual distress) via the mediating role of emotion regulation difficulties, considering potential sexual/gender minority status-based differences. Self-report online surveys were completed by 1036 sexually active (49.7% were girls) high school students (Mage = 14.6 years, SDage = 0.6). Bullying victimization was directly and negatively associated with sexual desire/arousal difficulties and positively with sexual distress. Higher emotion regulation difficulties mediated the associations between higher bullying victimization and higher orgasmic function difficulties, as well as higher bullying victimization and higher sexual distress. No significant association was observed between bullying victimization and sexual satisfaction. No significant differences were observed between heterosexual, cisgender and sexual and gender minority youth in any of the associations. The findings suggest that bullying victimization is associated with adolescents’ sexual wellbeing. The cross-sectional design and small effect sizes support the need for further prospective cohort studies.

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Notes

  1. Each item of the DERS was evaluated by the following criteria: having adequate standardized factor loadings in the validation study and best covering the breadth of the content determined by separate subjective evaluations from the co-investigators of the study (Bőthe et al., 2020b).

  2. As an additional test of the robustness of the results, using the moderation framework with interaction terms, the moderating role of identifying as SGM was examined (HC adolescents were coded as 0 and SGM adolescents were coded as 1 in the analysis). Identifying as HC vs. SGM did not moderate any of the examined associations (all ps ranged between 0.282 to 0.597), providing further support for the findings of the study.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Mylène Desrosiers and Camélia Dubois for their assistance with data collection.

Funding

This study was supported by a grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) awarded to the second and fifth author, and a scholarship awarded to the first author by the Fonds de recherche Québécois—société et culture (FRQSC). This work was supported also by the Merit Scholarship Program for Foreign Students (PBEEE) awarded by the Ministère de l’Éducation et de l’Enseignement Supérieur (MEES) to the third author.

Data Sharing and Declaration

The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are not publicly available but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Université de Montréal, C.P. 6128, Succursale Centre-Ville, Montréal, QC, H3C 3J7, Canada

    Alice Girouard, Beáta Bőthe & Sophie Bergeron

  2. Intersectoral Center for Sustainable Health, Université du Québec à Chicoutimi, 555, Boulevard de l’Université, Chicoutimi, QC, G7H 2B1, Canada

    Jacinthe Dion

  3. Department of Psychology, University of New Brunswick, 3 Bailey Drive, Fredericton, NB, E3B 5A3, Canada

    Lucia O’Sullivan

Authors
  1. Alice Girouard
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  2. Jacinthe Dion
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  3. Beáta Bőthe
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  4. Lucia O’Sullivan
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  5. Sophie Bergeron
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Contributions

AG contributed to the study’s conception and design, contributed to data collection, and drafted the manuscript; BB contributed to the study conception and design, performed the statistical analysis, and helped to draft and review the manuscript; JD conceived the study and obtained funding, provided material resources, participated in the design and coordination of the study, and helped to draft and review the manuscript; LO contributed to the study’s conception and design and helped to draft and review the manuscript; SB conceived the study and obtained funding, provided material resources, participated in its design and coordination, helped to draft as well as review the manuscript, and offered supervision. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Alice Girouard.

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Conflict of Interest

The authors declare no competing interests.

Ethical Approval

This study involved human participants and was performed in line with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. Approval was granted by the Ethics Committee of Université de Montréal (#CERAS-2018-19-020-P-2) and of Université du Québec à Chicoutimi (#CER-602.170.15).

Informed Consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Girouard, A., Dion, J., Bőthe, B. et al. Bullying Victimization and Sexual Wellbeing in Sexually Active Heterosexual, Cisgender and Sexual/Gender Minority Adolescents: The Mediating Role of Emotion Regulation. J Youth Adolescence 50, 2136–2150 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-021-01471-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-021-01471-7

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