Adolescent bullying victimisation and alcohol-related problem behaviour mediated by coping drinking motives over a 12 month period Lauren R. Topper a, ⁎, Natalie Castellanos-Ryan b , Clare Mackie b , Patricia J. Conrod b, ⁎ a MRC Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, The Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, UK b The Addictions Department, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, UK abstract article info Keywords: Bullying Victimisation Alcohol Motives Adolescence Background: Despite the adverse externalising risks associated with bullying victimisation, no study has investigated the underlying mechanisms of adolescent victims' engagement with alcohol. This current study investigated the development of risky coping drinking motives as a mediator in the relationship between adolescent school victimisation and alcohol-related problem behaviour using a longitudinal design over 12 months. Method: We recruited 324 participants, aged 13 to 15 from schools across London, England. Participants were surveyed during class time at 2 time points: baseline and 12 months. At both time points participants answered questions related to bullying victimisation, alcohol-related problem behaviour, drinking motives and the quantity by frequency of alcohol consumption. Results: The relationships between victimisation, drinking and drinking motives were investigated using Pearson correlations. Path analysis showed that victimisation leads both directly and indirectly, through coping motives to alcohol-related problems, rather than to the quantity and frequency of alcohol use. Significance of mediation was tested using 5000 bias corrected and accelerated bootstrapped intervals. Baseline victimisation was significantly correlated with baseline alcohol-related problem behaviour and predictive of future problems at 12 months. Drinking to cope at 12 months partially mediated the relationship between baseline victimisation and alcohol-related problems at 12 months. Conclusions: Results show that victims of bullying are drinking alcohol in a risky style, partly due to the development of self medicating drinking behaviour. Victims of bullying could therefore benefit from coping skills interventions targeting negative affect regulation in order to reduce the risk for future alcohol misuse. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Bullying within high schools is a severe problem throughout Europe and the US, with studies showing that on average 11% of adolescents report experiencing victimisation (Nansel, Craig, Overpeck, Saluja & Ruan, 2004; Nansel et al., 2001) (see Olweus, 2000 for a definition of school bullying). The psychological associations of victimisation are thought to be wide ranging, including depression, low self esteem and anxiety (Hawker & Boulton, 2000; Ivarsson, Broberg, Arvidsson & Gillberg, 2005). In addition to associated psychological disorders, adolescent victimisation presents an additional risk towards the development of externalising behaviours; such as aggression, delinquency, and substance misuse (Khatri, Kupersmidt & Patterson, 2000). These behaviours may be partly explained by the inhibition of pro-social behaviours, which are a noted consequence of experiencing school victimisation (Tremblay, Pihl, Vitaro & Dobkin, 1994). However, they may also reflect an avoidant coping process, at least with respect to substance misuse. Exposure to stress is an influencing factor underlying increases in alcohol self administration (e.g. Pelham et al., 1997). Colder, Campbell, Ruel, Richardson and Flay (2002) longitudinally assessed 1918 adolescents at 4 time points between grades 7 and 12. Latent growth mixture modelling was used to identify different trajectories of adolescent alcohol use. The authors showed that emotional distress increased the risk for occasional heavy drinking. This result was purported to support self medication models of alcohol use, in which occasional or episodic heavy drinking is triggered as a coping mechanism for specific stressors. To support this theory, a wide literature reports associations between various forms of victimisation and alcohol misuse. For example, Berenson, Wiemann and McCombs (2001) showed that victims of violent attacks (such as rape), were up to Addictive Behaviors 36 (2011) 6–13 ⁎ Corresponding authors. Topper is to be contacted at MRC Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, The Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, Denmark Hill, London, SE5 8AF, UK. Tel.: +44 207 848 0039. Conrod, The Addictions Department, The Institute of Psychiatry, King's College, London, The Addictions Sciences Building, PO 48, DeCrespigny Park, London SE5 8AF, United Kingdom. Tel.: + 44 207 848 0836; fax: +44 207 701 8454. E-mail addresses: lauren.topper@kcl.ac.uk (L.R. Topper), patricia.conrod@kcl.ac.uk (P.J. Conrod). 0306-4603/$ – see front matter © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.addbeh.2010.08.016 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Addictive Behaviors