Journal of Child and Family Studies https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-018-1105-5 ORIGINAL PAPER Peer Victimization and Mental Health Risk in Chilean Students Verónica López 1 ● Michael Murphy 2,3 ● Cara Lucke 2 ● Javier Torres-Vallejos 4 ● Boris Villalobos-Parada 5 ● Paula Ascorra 1 ● Claudia Carrasco 5 ● Marian Bilbao 6 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2018 Abstract Children who exhibit mental health problems are more likely to be targets of peer victimization. However, little is known about how mental health risk interacts with other individual and school-level factors in this relationship. In the current study, we explored the associations between peer victimization and mental health in 10,532 Chilean sixth grade students attending 405 of the lower SES schools in the country. Children were screened for mental health and classroom adaptation problems using standardized parent and teacher rating scales at the beginning of the school year, and completed questionnaires on self- reported peer victimization, classroom climate, and school climate at the end of the year, as part of an ongoing national school mental health program, which includes monitoring for school violence and school climate. Data were analyzed through logistic regression and multilevel analyses, incorporating sex, absenteeism due to physical health, school attendance, and individual SES as covariates. Results showed that the odds of being victimized by peers were five times greater for students who were identified at risk for mental health problems based on parent reports, and one time greater for students identified by teachers with attention and concentration difficulties. However, multilevel analyses showed that the relative contribution of mental health risk to peer victimization significantly diminished when other individual and school-level variables were included. Particularly relevant was the contribution of individual SES, classroom climate, and absenteeism due to physical health; and of school-level SES. These findings suggest the complex nature of the influence of mental health on peer victimization and the relevance of the social context interacting with student’s mental health problems. Keywords Bullying ● Peer victimization ● Mental health ● School climate ● Chile Introduction Bullying is a “…multifaceted form of mistreatment, mostly seen in schools and the workplace. It is characterized by the repeated exposure of one person to physical and/or emotional aggression including teasing, name calling, mockery, threats, harassment, taunting, hazing, social exclusion, or rumors” (Currie et al. 2010). Bullying is characterized by the perpetrators’ intention to harm (Craig and Pepler 1998; Hawker and Boulton 2000; Nansel et al. 2001), but since an intention is operationally very hard to measure, the literature often depicts peer victimization as a way to measure bullying. Peer victimization is defined as repeated aggressive behavior that involves a power imbal- ance not only between the bully and victim, but that also extends beyond these two individuals to include supporters, as well as bystanders who may fail to intervene in the harassment (Salmivalli 2010). There are several classifica- tions of peer victimization that includes relational, physical, verbal, and generic victimization (Hawker and Boulton 2000). Bullying and peer victimization is a common occurrence in the school context, and approximately 20–30% of students have reported being either the perpe- trator or the victim of bullying (Spivak and Prothrow-Stith 2001). * Verónica López veronica.lopez@pucv.cl 1 Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, Center for Research in Inclusive Education, Valparaíso, Chile 2 Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA 3 Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA 4 Universidad Tecnológica de Chile INACAP, Santiago, Chile 5 Departamento de Psicología, Universidad de Playa Ancha, Val paraíso, Chile 6 Universidad de Santiago de Chile, Santiago, Chile 1234567890();,: 1234567890();,: