A Systematic Review of Bullying Prevention Programs in Schools

Bullying prevention programs have been shown to be generally effective in reducing bullying and victimization. Because it is crucial for social workers to understand the impact of bullying prevention programs, a systematic review was conducted for this project to identify which programs have been found to be successful. A total of 518 reports concerned with bullying prevention were found, and 33 were assessed for eligibility. Of these reports, fifteen were included in this review. All articles from 1993 up to 2014 were hand-searched, and were in 9 electronic databases. Through a review of fifteen articles that acknowledged bullying prevention, numerous similarities, differences, as well as future questions were identified. Populations served through these programs included individual adolescents, teachers, and parents. No two articles presented a bullying prevention program identical to another, though numerous aspects were replicated in a number of the articles. All of the research articles reviewed identified some degree of positive effects in a bullying prevention programs. Findings indicate that bullying prevention programs work, as the combined effect of the various programs and implementations are shown to decrease bullying and victimization by an average of 17-23 percent.