Pretesting an online tailored advice for cyberbullying victims

Description

Cyberbullying is an increasing problem associated with psychosocial and behavioral problems. In order to prevent adolescents suffering from these problems, an online tailored advice (consisting of three advice moments) was developed, to teach cyberbullying victims how to (mentally and behaviourally) cope situations in which cyberbullying occurs. This intervention was developed according to the Intervention Mapping method. The aim of this study is to pretest the procedure of intervention and to find out how participants judge the intervention on credibility, attractiveness, personal relevance, understanding and self reported effects.
Focus group interviews were held with 36 young and low educated victims who just transited from primary school to secondary school (12-15 years). Participants were selected on being cyberbullied. After completing the online questionnaire to determine their personality characteristics, beliefs, behavioral problems and behavioral responses, participants subsequently received the online tailored advice. This was done for all three tailored advices. Subsequently, information on credibility, attractiveness etc. was gathered via self-developed questionnaires. The questionnaires and the content of the online advice were discussed in interviews. Qualitative data was analyzed with Nvivo.
The results of this study provide specific attitudes, preferences, comments and opinions about the process and perceived efficacy of the online tailored advices. With the results, the intervention can be adjusted to the specific needs of (cyber)bullying victims.
These results contribute to health psychology by providing guidelines for developing and implementing online health promoting interventions in general, and specifically for low educated adolescents who are victims of cyberbullying.

Period	31 Jan 2013 - 1 Feb 2013
Held at	The 2nd Conference of the Association for Researchers in Psychology and Health
Event type	Conference
Conference number	2
Location	Enschede, Netherlands
Degree of Recognition	International