Bullying girls - Changes after brief strategic family therapy: A randomized, prospective, controlled trial with one-year follow-up

Background: Many girls bully others. They are conspicuous because
of their risk-taking behavior, increased anger, problematic
interpersonal relationships and poor quality of life. Our aim was
to determine the efficacy of brief strategic family therapy (BSFT)
for bullying-related behavior, anger reduction, improvement of
interpersonal relationships, and improvement of health-related
quality of life in girls who bully, and to find out whether their
expressive aggression correlates with their distinctive
psychological features. Methods: 40 bullying girls were recruited
from the general population: 20 were randomly selected for 3 months
of BSFT. Follow-up took place 12 months after the therapy had
ended. The results of treatment were examined using the
Adolescents' Risk-taking Behavior Scale (ARBS), the State-Trait
Anger Expression Inventory (STAXI), the Inventory of Interpersonal
Problems (IIP-D), and the SF-36 Health Survey (SF-36). Results: In
comparison with the control group (CG) (according to the
intent-to-treat principle), bullying behavior in the BSFT group was
reduced (BSFT-G from n = 20 to n = 6; CG from n = 20 to n = 18, p =
0.05) and statistically significant changes in all risk-taking
behaviors (ARBS), on most STAXI, IIP-D, and SF-36 scales were
observed after BSFT. The reduction in expressive aggression
(Anger-Out scale of the STAXI) correlated with the reduction on
several scales of the ARBS, IIP-D, and SF-36. Follow-up a year
later showed relatively stable events. Conclusions: Our findings
suggest that bullying girls suffer from psychological and social
problems which may be reduced by the use of BSFT. Expressive
aggression in girls appears to correlate with several types of
risk-taking behavior and interpersonal problems, as well as with
health-related quality of life. Copyright (c) 2006 S. Karger AG,
Basel.