Víctimas de cyberbullying y su influencia en las Dificultades de Regulación Emocional en adolescentes del Ecuador

Introduction: Cyberbullying is a phenomenon of harassment between peers that causes emotional effects in the victims. Objective: To identify the prevalence of victims of cyberbullying and Emotional Regulation Difficulties, as well as the relationship and predictability in a sample of adolescents from Ecuador. Method: Correlational and explanatory descriptive study. Participants: 904 adolescents (53.5% women and 46.5% men) aged between 15 and 18 years (M = 16.6 years; SD = 1.15), students from nine cities in Ecuador. Results: The prevalence of consolidated victims of cyberbullying is low (3%) and 82% of cases report attacks at least once in their lives, while in Emotional Regulation Difficulties there is a low moderate presence with 9.3% of cases of risk. There is a moderate and positive relationship between Cyberbullying-victimization and Emotional Regulation Difficulties. Cyberbullying-victimization explains 22.8% of the changes in the variance of Emotional Regulation Difficulties through an adequate adjustment model. Conclusions: Cyberbullying victimization is an important predictor in the development of Emotional Regulation Difficulties in adolescents in Ecuador, which allows identifying the effect of bullying on emotions.