A school-based intervention to reduce bullying among adolescents – Experience from a rural setting in Sri Lanka

Introduction: Bullying is a widespread problem among school going adolescents which causes significant impact on their mental wellbeing. It is important to implement necessary action to reduce bullying and promote mental health of the students.Objectives: To develop, implement a school-based intervention with multiple approaches and assess the effectiveness of it to reduce bullying among adolescent students of Kegalle District in Sri LankaMethods: Components of the intervention were developed involving different stakeholders related to adolescent mental health promotion in school setting. A quasi-experimental study was conducted in Kegalle Educational Zone and two schools were purposively selected for the intervention and control group.Results: Developed and implemented intervention was effective in reducing overall bullying and physical, verbal and relational bullying victimization among students (p≤0.001).Conclusions & Recommendations: The intervention developed with multiple approaches effectively improved the bullying victimization among school going adolescents in the intervention group after three months of the implementation.