In a study of 4,280 students in 13 Brazilian schools, cyberbullying appeared within broader patterns of bullying involvement rather than as a separate, purely online profile. That is evidence that online and in-person bullying can overlap in this sample—not proof that cyberbullying always extends school conflict, or that one form causes another.
What did the study find?
The study, published in Psychiatry Research on 22 July 2026, used latent class analysis to group students by reported bullying and cyberbullying involvement. Its best-fitting model identified three profiles: “Uninvolved,” “Predominantly Traditional Victimized,” and “Multicontext Victim-Perpetrators.” It did not identify a purely cyber-involved class or a pure aggressor class. The journal article record and abstract describe the profiles and their associations.
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The result supports a limited conclusion: in these students’ reported experiences, online bullying was not represented as a standalone profile in the best-fitting model. It does not establish that every instance of cyberbullying began at school, that school bullying necessarily moves online, or that the same pattern holds in other populations.
How were students grouped?
The article’s sample was 4,280 students in grades 7–12 from 13 schools in Brazil; the abstract describes it as census-based. Agência FAPESP’s account rounds the sample to 4,200. Its reported shares for each profile were:
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| Profile | Share reported by Agência FAPESP | Pattern described |
|---|---|---|
| Uninvolved | 48% | No significant association with violence, as summarized by the agency. |
| Predominantly Traditional Victimized | 46% | Frequently bullied at school, sometimes bullying others, and rarely involved in cyberbullying. |
| Multicontext Victim-Perpetrators | 6% | Involved across multiple contexts, including traditional bullying and cyberbullying. |
These percentages are figures reported in Agência FAPESP’s 7 October 2026 coverage, not a global estimate of how common the profiles are among adolescents. The study’s country, school sample, and grade range matter when interpreting them.
What does “an extension of school violence” mean here?
Study coordinator Zila Sanchez, head of UNIFESP’s Department of Preventive Medicine, told Agência FAPESP: “In these students, violence against the same young person occurs both at school and online, indicating that cyberbullying is often an extension of in-person conflict.” The quote is her interpretation of the findings, as reported by the agency; it is not a direct quotation from the journal article.
“Extension” is a useful description of overlap, but it should not be mistaken for a demonstrated sequence. The analysis grouped reported involvement patterns; it did not show whether in-person bullying came first, whether online incidents led to school incidents, or whether either caused the other.
Were mental-health symptoms or substance use linked to the profiles?
The journal abstract reports that multicontext victim-perpetrator involvement was associated with psychological symptoms and substance use. It reports no association with screen time. These are associations between profile membership and reported outcomes, not evidence that bullying caused symptoms or substance use, or that screen time explains the profile.
Agência FAPESP reported that 52.4% of students in the multicontext group had psychological symptoms at a clinically significant level, compared with 12.5% of students not involved in bullying. It also reported that seven in ten in the multicontext group had consumed alcohol at some point in their lives. These figures are the agency’s account of the study; they should not be read as causal effects or assumed to apply beyond this sample. The agency also characterized the symptom finding as an “11-fold higher likelihood,” but the journal abstract does not provide the effect estimates or methods needed to independently interpret that characterization.
What can schools and families take from the findings?
The findings make it sensible to ask about both offline and online experiences when a young person reports bullying. A school response focused only on incidents on campus may miss related online experiences; an online-only response may miss school-based conflict. That is a practical implication of the observed overlap, not evidence that a particular intervention works.
Agência FAPESP reported that the findings contributed to Prisma, a São Paulo program for eighth- and ninth-grade students being tested in 36 state schools across six cities, with nearly 5,000 adolescents participating. The agency said the program included teacher training and student lessons on substance-use prevention, bullying, cyberbullying, and emotional education, with initial follow-up results expected after the end of 2026. Those details describe an initiative under evaluation, not demonstrated effectiveness. The agency also said the study is part of Prev.Action, a thematic project evaluating adolescent alcohol-prevention strategies in four municipalities in São Paulo state.
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- Whether cyberbullying generally begins as school conflict or travels in the other direction.
- How prevalent these profiles are among adolescents outside the participating Brazilian schools.
- Whether bullying caused psychological symptoms or substance use.
- Whether the Prisma program reduces bullying or improves student outcomes.
The journal abstract does not provide the specific measures, recruitment dates, confidence intervals, or full model comparisons. Those details are therefore not established by the abstract and agency report alone.
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