Anti-Bullying Interventions With an Emphasis on Bystanders: A Scoping Review.

BACKGROUND

Bystanders' role in bullying situations is important, and may exacerbate or minimize the problem. Thus, this article aims to identify the characteristics of anti-bullying programs with an emphasis on bystanders.

METHODS

This is a scoping review. We included studies that addressed interventions with an emphasis on bystanders, carried out with school children and adolescents, aimed at reducing bullying/cyberbullying and/or increasing defending behavior. Fifteen portals/databases were searched. The selection and extraction processes were carried out through the blind review strategy. The synthesis took place descriptively.

RESULTS

We found 12 interventions. The most investigated were KiVa (n = 9), STAC (n = 3), and Curriculum-Based Anti-Bullying (n = 2).

CONCLUSIONS

There are few anti-bullying programs with an emphasis on bystanders, and the majority are universal programs with strategies applied by teachers, giving little attention to parents. Moreover, most of these programs lack a broader mix of anti-bullying strategies. Therefore, we suggest developing anti-bullying programs with multiple components that contain universal, selective, and indicated strategies.