Bullying as an Adverse Childhood Experience?—State of the Art

Abstract

The objective of this state-of-the-art review was to ascertain whether bullying should be regarded as an ACE. To that end, a systematic search of the extant literature was conducted. Acomprehensive search of three databases yielded 27 studies that met the inclusion criteria. The papers that were identified were sorted into the following categories: expanded ACE, associations between ACEs and bullying, latent class analysis, biological stress markers and negative health outcomes associated with ACEs and bullying. The extant evidence indicates that bullying falls within the ambit of the ACE concept. Moreover, bullying contributes independently and as part of the cumulative score to the prediction of negative health outcomes. However, minor discrepancies to other ACEs were identified, for example in the different path of embodiment regarding changes in BMI. It is recommended that subsequent studies incorporate bullying as an element of their ACE measurements. One approach to doing so would be to utilize the ACE-IQ. Further research is necessary to elucidate the embodiment of the consequences of ACEs and bullying.