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Abstract
<p class="first" id="d7426614e69">This descriptive scoping aims to understand how
the prevalence of cyberbullying has
been estimated across studies. A systematic scoping review of cyberbullying empirical
studies was conducted by using three bibliographic databases to search for papers
published between January 2004 and August 2014. A protocol was defined to identify
the relevant papers. Papers selected were included in a data sheet developed by the
authors to record specific findings. In total, 159 studies were included in the scoping
review. Most of the prevalence studies were conducted in the last 4 years, mainly
in North America ( n = 77) and in Europe ( n = 65). High methodological heterogeneity
was found among the studies, which may contribute to explain variability in prevalence
estimates. Cyberbullying experiences were assessed through several different perspectives:
focused only on victims, focused only on perpetrators, or focused on both victims
and perpetrators (without differentiating between if they are victims or perpetrators).
Most of the studies tend to assess cybervictimization experiences. However, even considering
the same perspective, the same country, and the same recall period, a high variability
in the estimates was observed. As a main conclusion, the way in which the prevalence
of cyberbullying is estimated is influenced by methodological research options.
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