JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Cyberbullying victimization is a significant risk factor for poor psychological well-being among college students. Existing tools fail to capture the distinct dimensions of victimization in social media contexts.

Objective:

This study aimed to develop and validate a Social Media Cyberbullying Victimization Scale (SMCVS) and examine its associations with psychological outcomes among Chinese college students.

Methods:

In Shanghai, China, 1,766 students from multiple universities completed questionnaires including demographic information, the SMCVS, the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 and the Generalized Anxiety Disorder scale-7. The psychometric evaluation of the SMCVS included construct and criterion validity, internal consistency, split-half and test-retest reliability. Receiver operating characteristic analyses were used to evaluate predictive ability for depression and anxiety.

Results:

Exploratory factor analysis identified two dimensions: Information Harassment and Privacy Violation, explaining 82.21% of the total variance. Confirmatory factor analysis supported this structure (goodness-of-fit index = 0.943, comparative fit index = 0.982, normed fit index = 0.978, root mean square error of approximation = 0.075). Both dimensions showed significant correlations with depression (r = 0.433-0.457) and anxiety (r = 0.356-0.372). Cronbach’s alpha, Spearman-Brown coefficient, and test-retest reliability coefficient were 0.959, 0.973, and 0.860, respectively. The SMCVS demonstrated moderate discriminative accuracy for depression (area under the curve [AUC] = 0.738) and anxiety (AUC = 0.739).

Conclusions:

The SMCVS demonstrates robust psychometric properties and is useful for assessing social media cyberbullying victimization among Chinese college students. Its validated two-dimensional structure clarifies distinct patterns of victimization and their psychological correlates, informing targeted prevention and intervention strategies.