Systematic Review of the Prevalence of School Violence in Spain

Abstract

School violence, or bullying, in its different forms, is a generalized phenomenon that has been detected in every country where it has been studied. However, prevalence rates differ considerably from country to country. The objective of this study was to do a systematic review of all published studies concerning bullying at school where a Spanish sample is used, in order to make an evidence-based estimation of the prevalence of bullying in Spain. The results obtained, based on data from the 32 studies that were included, indicate a prevalence rate of 11.45% for bullying overall, and when broken down by type, a higher rate for "traditional" bullying than for cyberbullying. These data are comparable to the most recent national and international studies.