Time Trends in Adolescent School Absences and Associated Bullying Involvement Between 2000 and 2019: A Nationwide Study.

Publisher: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers Country of Publication: United States NLM ID: 1275332 Publication Model: Print-Electronic Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 1573-3327 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 0009398X NLM ISO Abbreviation: Child Psychiatry Hum Dev Subsets: MEDLINE

Publication: 1999- : New York : Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers
Original Publication: New York, Behavioral Publications

Bullying*/statistics & numerical data ; Absenteeism* ; Schools*/statistics & numerical data ; Crime Victims*/statistics & numerical data ; Students*/statistics & numerical data ; Adolescent Behavior*; Humans ; Adolescent ; Male ; Female ; Finland/epidemiology

Competing Interests: Declarations. Ethics approval and consent to participate: The Institute of Health and Welfare in Finland Working Group on Research Ethics has approved the study. Competing Interests: The authors have no competing interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article.
Education is a central determinant of adolescent health. School absences and bullying involvement jeopardize wellbeing, mental health, and educational attainment. We analyzed time trends in school absenteeism over two decades and examined the association of absenteeism with bullying involvement.We analyzed data from the nationwide School Health Promotion study, with self-reported data from Finnish middle school students in grades 8 and 9 (ages 14-17, N = 1 000 970). Questionnaires assessed frequency of illness absences (IA), truancy, frequency of bullying victimization, bullying perpetration, and involvement in both bullying perpetration and victimization. Frequent school absences were defined as occurring on more than 3 days during the prior month (2000-2015), or at least weekly (2017-2019).Frequent IA increased from 12% to 2000 to 22% in 2015. In 2017-2019, frequent IA was reported by 3.5%. Frequent truancy declined from 9% to 2000 to 4% in 2015, and remained at 4% during 2017-2019. Bully victimization was reported at least weekly by 6.9%, perpetration by 5.4% and victimization-perpetration by 1.9% of participants in total. In a logistic regression model, every type of bullying involvement increased odds for both IA and truancy.Since bullying involvement was associated with both IA and truancy, particular concern should be raised for adolescents involved in bullying, and for their social and educational functioning. The concurrent increase in IA and decrease in truancy may reflect destigmatization of mental health problems or other changes in reporting absenteeism.
(© 2023. The Author(s).)

Erratum in: Child Psychiatry Hum Dev. 2025 Jun;56(3):648. doi: 10.1007/s10578-023-01604-y.. (PMID: 37688718)

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Keywords: Bullying; Illness absence; School absence; Time trend; Truancy

Date Created: 20230826 Date Completed: 20250521 Latest Revision: 20250524

20250524

PMC12095371

10.1007/s10578-023-01601-1

37632555