Traumatic and Psychosomatic Symptoms in Children Exposed to Peer Violence: A Cross-Sectional Study in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Instrument	Developer/Year	Language	Target Age	Scales / Dimensions	Cronbach’s α	Validation
School Violence Questionnaire (SVQ 2003) [20]	Child Protection Centre of Zagreb (2003)	Croatian	12–15	11 aggressive behaviours grouped into 5 violence types	0.84	Validated in Croatian
Trauma Symptom Checklist for Children (TSCC-A) [21]	Briere (1996); Croatian edition by Buljan Flander & Profaca	Croatian	8–16	44 items / 6 subscales: anxiety, depression, anger, PTSD, overt and fantasy dissociation	0.82–0.89	Validated and standardised in Croatian
Psychosomatic Symptoms Scale (PSS) [23]	Vulić-Prtorić (2019)	Croatian	10–18	35 items in 7 somatic domains (frequency and interference)	0.89–0.91	Validated for the Croatian population

[i] Notes: In addition to assessing the frequency of psychosomatic symptoms, the PSS also measures the degree to which these symptoms interfere with students’ daily functioning.

Table 2.

Sociodemographic characteristics of students by role in bullying.

N (%)	Neutral	Victim	Bully	Bully/Victim	p^*
Gender
Male	887 (48.0)^a	134 (43.2)^a	50 (69.4)^a	56 (54.9)^a,b	<0.001
Female	960 (52.0)^a	176 (56.8)^a	22 (30.6)^a	46 (45.1)^a,b	<0.001
Family structure
Both parents	1648 (89.2)^a	266 (85.8)^a,b	60 (83.3)^a,b	82 (80.4)^b	0.011
Other	199 (10.8)^a	44 (14.2)^a,b	12 (16.7)^a,b	20 (19.6)^b	0.011
Siblings
0	172 (9.3)	28 (9)	10 (13.9)	11 (10.8)	0.308
1	744 (40.3)	111 (35.8)	26 (36.1)	32 (31.4)
2	563 (30.5)	110 (35.5)	18 (25)	39 (38.2)
3 or more	368 (19.9)	61 (19.7)	18 (25)	20 (19.6)
Area of residence
Urban	1177 (63.7)	201 (64.8)	46 (63.9)	78 (76.5)	0.076
Rural	670 (36.3)	109 (35.2)	26 (36.1)	24 (23.5)	0.076
Grade level
7th	621 (33.6)^a	112 (36.1)^a	13 (18.1)^b	20 (19.6)^b	0.001
8th	628 (34.0)^a	96 (31)^a	24 (33.3)^a	36 (35.3)^a
9th	598 (32.4)^a	102 (32.9)^a,b	35 (48.6)^b	46 (45.1)^b
Academic performance
1 (Fail)	61 (3.3)^a	7 (2.3)^a	3 (4.2)^a	5 (4.9)^a	0.005
2 (Poor)	58 (3.1)^a	10 (3.2)^a	1 (1.4)^a	8 (7.8)^a
3 (Satisfactory)	398 (21.5)^a	87 (28.1)^a	23 (31.9)^a	25 (24.5)^a
4 (Very good)	638 (34.5)^a	96 (31)^a	32 (44.4)^a	30 (29.4)^a
5 (Excellent)	692 (37.5)^a	110 (35.5)^a	13 (18.1)^b	34 (33.3)^a,b

Notes: The results are shown as a number (%).

* Chi-square test with a comparison of proportions with the Bonferroni correction.

{ label (or @symbol) needed for fn[@id='j_sjph-2025-0029_tfn_004'] } Subscript letters indicate the significance of differences between groups at the 0.05 level.

Table 3.

Frequency and impact of psychosomatic symptoms among students by role in bullying.

	Neutral	Victim	Bully	Bully/Victim	p^*
Frequency
Pseudoneurological	1.11^a [0.3]	1.44^b [1]	1.22^b,c [0.5]	1.33^c [0.9]	<0.001
Cardiovascular	1.33^a [1]	2^b [1.3]	1.67^a,b [1]	2^b [1.3]	<0.001
Musculoskeletal	1^a [0.5]	1.5^c [1.5]	1^a,b [0.5]	1.5^b,c [1.5]	<0.001
Respiratory	1.33^a [0.3]	1.67^b [1]	1.33^a [0.3]	1.67^b [0.3]	<0.001
Gastrointestinal	1.33^a [0.6]	1.67^c [0.7]	1.39^a,b [0.6]	1.56^b,c [0.8]	<0.001
Dermatological	1.33^a [1]	1.67^b [1]	1.33^a,b [1]	1.5^b [1]	<0.001
Pain/Fatigue	1.67^a [0.7]	2.17^b [1]	1.83^a [0.7]	2.17^b [0.8]	<0.001
Interference
Pseudoneurological	1.11^a [0.3]	1.33^c [0.7]	1.22^b [0.6]	1.22^b,c [0.8]	<0.001
Cardiovascular	1.33^a [0.7]	1.67^c [0.7]	1.33^a,b [0.7]	1.67^b,c [1]	<0.001
Musculoskeletal	1^a [0.5]	1.5^b [1]	1^a,b [0.5]	1^b [1]	<0.001
Respiratory	1.33^a [0.7]	1.67^c [1]	1.33^a,b [0.7]	1.67^b,c [1]	<0.001
Gastrointestinal	1.22^a [0.4]	1.44^c [0.7]	1.22^a,b [0.8]	1.39^b,c [0.7]	<0.001
Dermatological	1^a [0.7]	1.33^c [1]	1.17^a,b [0.7]	1.33^b,c [1]	<0.001
Pain/Fatigue	1.5^a [0.7]	1.83^b [0.8]	1.67^b [0.7]	1.83^b [0.7]	<0.001

Notes: The results are shown as median [interquartile range].

* Kruskal-Wallis test with Dunn’s post-hoc test.

Significance values have been adjusted by the Bonferroni correction for multiple tests.

{ label (or @symbol) needed for fn[@id='j_sjph-2025-0029_tfn_008'] } Subscript letters indicate the significance of differences between groups at the 0.05 level.

Frequency of psychosomatic symptoms by bullying role.

Interference of psychosomatic symptoms with daily functioning due to bullying role.

Distribution of traumatic symptoms according to bullying involvement.

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/sjph-2025-0029 | Journal eISSN: 1854-2476 | Journal ISSN: 0351-0026

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Language: English, Slovenian

Page range: 227 - 236

Submitted on: Jun 6, 2025

Accepted on: Oct 27, 2025

Published on: Dec 1, 2025

Published by: National Institute of Public Health, Slovenia

In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services

Keywords:

Bullying,

Peer violence,

Traumatic symptoms,

Psychosomatic disorders,

Mental health,

Primary school students

Related subjects:

Medicine,

Clinical medicine,

Hygiene and environmental medicine

© 2025 Marnela Palameta, Ankica Mijić Marić, Edita Černy Obrdalj, Amra Zalihić, Nina Pinjuh Markota, Boženka Galić Tirić, Kristina Bevanda, published by National Institute of Public Health, Slovenia
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Volume 64 (2025): Issue 4 (December 2025)

Traumatic and Psychosomatic Symptoms in Children Exposed to Peer Violence: A Cross-Sectional Study in Bosnia and Herzegovina

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