Peer-reviewed article
Differential impacts of bullying and sexual violence on girls' self-esteem in Nigeria: the buffering role of social support.
Orjiakor EC, Obioha WC ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study examined how social support from family and friends affects the well-being of 5,936 secondary schoolgirls in Nigeria who experience bullying and sexual violence. Both bullying and sexual violence reduced girls' self-esteem, but sexual violence had a stronger negative effect. Social support from family and friends helped protect girls' self-esteem from bullying, but did not reduce the harm caused by sexual violence. The findings suggest that preventing and addressing sexual violence requires specialized interventions beyond social support networks.
Key points
- Sexual violence had a stronger negative effect on girls' self-esteem (β ≈ -0.07) than bullying (β ≈ -0.04)
- Perceived social support from family, friends, and others showed positive effects on self-esteem overall
- Social support from family, friends, and overall support buffered the negative impact of bullying on self-esteem
- Social support did not moderate or reduce the harmful effects of sexual violence on self-esteem
- Effective interventions require both relationship-based networks to prevent bullying and specialized trauma-informed responses for sexual violence
Limitations
The study is cross-sectional, so it cannot establish causality or determine whether low self-esteem precedes or follows bullying and sexual violence. The findings are specific to secondary schoolgirls aged 15-20 in Nigeria and may not generalize to other age groups, settings, or countries.
Abstract
Background School-related gender-based violence (SRGBV) poses serious risks to adolescent girls' safety, learning, and mental health. This study assessed whether perceived social support - from family, friends, and significant others - buffers the negative effects of bullying and sexual violence on girls' self-esteem in Nigeria. Methods Using data from 5,936 secondary schoolgirls (aged 15-20 years) drawn from the Adolescent Girls' Initiative for Learning and Empowerment (AGILE) project, we employed multilevel linear models with random intercepts for schools to test the direct (main) effects and within-level moderation of social support and SRGBV on girls' self-esteem, adjusting for student- and school-level covariates. Results Both bullying and sexual violence were significantly associated with lower self-esteem, with standardized coefficients indicating a stronger negative association for sexual violence (β ≈ -0.07, p < .001) than for bullying (β ≈ -0.04, p < .01). Perceived social support showed significant positive main effects on self-esteem across all sources (p < .001) and moderated the relationship with bullying, such that higher support from family (β ≈ 0.031, p < .01), friends (β ≈ 0.024, p < .05), and overall support (β ≈ 0.023, p < .05) attenuated its negative effect. No moderating effect was observed for sexual violence for any support source (all interaction p > .05), indicating that perceived social support did not offset the self-esteem harms associated with sexual victimization. Conclusion Our study demonstrates that everyday social ties, particularly support from family and peers, can protect girls' self-esteem from the harms of bullying but appear insufficient to mitigate the severe impact of sexual violence. This suggests that effective interventions require an integrated approach: strengthening relationship-based networks to prevent and buffer bullying, alongside establishing specialized, trauma-informed responses to address sexual violence.
Findings the Hub has extracted
Each claim below is labelled by its type of design and links back to this report.
- Intervention
- Perceived social support from family, friends, and significant others as a protective factor
- Population
- 5,936 secondary schoolgirls aged 15-20 years in Nigeria
Key finding
Sexual violence showed stronger negative association with self-esteem (β ≈ -0.07, p < .001) compared to bullying (β ≈ -0.04, p < .01)
EC et al. · Europe PMC · 31 Jan 2026