Children who were bullied and those who were bullies themselves are both at higher risk for depression, anxiety and panic disorder years later, according to a US study.

Researchers had known that bullying can take a psychological toll on both bullies and victims, but it had been unclear just how long those effects would last

Researchers had known that bullying can take a psychological toll on both bullies and victims, but it had been unclear just how long those effects would last.

But the latest study, published in Jama Psychiatry, found that depression and anxiety tied to bullying at school persisted at least through people’s mid-20s. The worst off were those who had been both bullies and the targets of bullying.

“It’s obviously very well established how problematic bullying is short-term,” said William Copeland, a clinical psychologist who led the new study at Duke University Medical Centre in Durham, North Carolina.

“I was surprised that a decade down the road after they’ve been victimised, when they’ve kind of transitioned to adulthood, we would still see these emotional marks for the victims and also the bullies/victims.”

His team’s research included 1,420 youth from western North Carolina who were asked about their experiences with bullying at various points between age nine and 16, then were followed and assessed for psychiatric disorders through age 26.

Just over one-fourth of children and their parents reported they were bullied at least once, and close to one in 10 said they had bullied other children.

After adjusting for the participants’ history of family hardships, the researchers found that compared to young adults with no history of bullying, former victims were at higher risk for a range of psychiatric conditions.

For example, six per cent of uninvolved youth went on to have an anxiety disorder, versus 24 per cent of former bullying victims and 32 per cent of youth who had been both bullies and targets of bullying.

Children who originally reported both bullying and being bullied were the most likely to be diagnosed with panic disorder or depression as young adults or to consider suicide.

“It’s not surprising that that would be the case, because in part they’re reacting to the trauma of being bullied and they also carry with them the experience of having been bullied,” said Mark Schuster, chief of general paediatrics at Boston Children’s Hospital and a professor at Harvard Medical School.

Copeland agreed.

“These folks are the ones who get bullied and instead of experiencing empathy... they’re more reactive and they see bullying as more of a way of getting attention,” he said.

Youths who were just bullies and never picked-on themselves were at four times higher risk for antisocial personality disorder, which is characterised by a lack of empathy and mistreatment of others.

Psychiatric disorders in childhood and children’s family problems were tied to bullying but did not fully explain future problems, Copeland and his colleagues found.

“(The study) calls attention to just how serious bullying can be, and it reinforces what we’ve been learning, which is that bullying is not just a rite of passage, it’s not just part of growing up and all kids experience it and they’re stronger for it,” Schuster said.