Comparing Association between Traditional-/Cyber-Bullying Perpetration and Marijuana Use Among Young People: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Background: Although traditional- and cyber-bullying perpetration share similar features, they are also distinguishable and may result in differing impacts on marijuana use among young people. Hence, the current study aims to first summarize the existing evidence on the association between bullying (traditional/cyberbullying) perpetration and young people’s marijuana use, and to compare the effect sizes of these associations.

Methods: Following the PRISMA guideline, literature was searched in six databases from January 1, 2000 to October 31, 2022 using three topic-related keywords and one target-related search terms in varying combinations. For example, some of the keywords include cyber perpetration, offline bullying, cannabis, youth, university students, etc. A total of 22 cross-sectional and observational studies were included in this review. The NIH quality assessment tool was used to ensure the quality of the studies included, which yielded the overall rating of these sources as ‘fair.’ For the meta-analysis, random effects model was used to address the heterogeneity across studies, and the Galbraith plots were drawn to detect the outliers.

Results: Of the 22 studies (N = 165,121) included, 77% were conducted in the United States and 23% in other countries, including Canada, Italy, Australia and Spain. Regarding the measurement tools for traditional bullying, cyberbullying, and marijuana, 33.3% used a standardized tool for traditional bullying, 33.3% for cyberbullying, and 9% for marijuana use. Of the 11 studies (n = 26,592) that specified the country (or state) and legalized the use of marijuana, four studies collected data after legalization and seven studies prior to legalization. The prevalence of marijuana use was measured during the past 30 days (ranging from 2.8-51.0%), past month (7.7-21.7%), six months (17.0-22.6%), past year (14.3-42.1%), and lifetime (9.1-36.2%). The occurrence of traditional and cyber-bullying perpetration was assessed in various forms, including traditional bullying without a specified type (ranging from 2.3-78.4%), traditional physical bullying only (6.4-33.6%), traditional physical bullying with other sub-types such as verbal, relational, or nonphysical (5.7-85.0%), traditional racial bullying (1.2-6.0%), and cyberbullying (3.8-4.6%). For the association between traditional bullying perpetration and marijuana use, 85.0% reported a positive association, 10.0% found no significant relationship, and 5.0% indicated a negative association. Of the five studies (n = 21,081) that examined the relationship between cyberbullying and marijuana use, all the studies confirmed a positive association. The meta-analyses revealed that both traditional bullying and cyberbullying perpetration had an overall effect on marijuana use among young people with the pooled effect sizes at 0.902 and 1.245, respectively. Comparing these two effect sizes, the strength of association was stronger for cyberbullying perpetration and marijuana use than with traditional bullying perpetration.

Conclusions/Implications: Based on the positive associations between both types of bullying and marijuana use, substance abuse treatment involving young people should integrate an assessment of the history of traditional- or cyber-bullying for better intervention outcomes. There is a clear need for future research exploring in depth whether the larger effect size for cyberbullying is simply due to the transition of bullying platforms to online setting among young people nowadays or due to other factors.