Effectiveness of Cognitive Behavioral Social Work Intervention on Preventing Cyberbullying Revictimization Among Youths

Introduction: Cyberbullying is one of the most common results of information and communication technologies' development. Cyberbullying victims may experience various consequences which will effect on different aspects of their well-being. In this investigation the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral social work intervention on preventing cyberbullying revictimization was studied. Methods: This is a clinical trial study and convenience sampling was conducted to select forty-two members of the Red Crescent youth organization of Tehran participated who were cyberbullying victims. Participants were allocated randomly to intervention and control groups twenty-one persons for each group. Cyberbullying Victimize Checklist was used to collect data. The intervention group received cognitive-behavioral social work intervention and control group received entrepreneurship education as placebo. The posttest was performed two months after the intervention. Chi-square, Fisher's exact test and ordinal regression were used to analyze data.  Results: Forty-seven percent of the participants were male. Sixty-six point six percent of them were in the age group of eighteen to twenty-one years old and seventy-six percent were single. The results of the study showed that there was a significant difference between the amounts of participants cyberbullying victimization before and after the intervention. The intervention group significantly revictimized in cyberbullying less than control group. The cognitive-behavioral social work intervention could predict cyberbullying revictimization duration and frequency.  Conclusions: So this study showed that conducting cognitive behavioral social work intervention could be an effective strategy to reduce the risk of cyberbullying revictimization.