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Although studies have examined the association between bullying victimization and adolescent substance behaviors, there is a dearth of research investigating the association between bullying victimization and prescription drug misuse. The objective of this study was to examine the cross-sectional association between bullying victimization and prescription drug misuse among adolescents.

Data for this study came from the 2017 Youth Risk Behavior Survey. A sample of 9974 adolescents aged 14–18 years (50.1% female) were analyzed using binary logistic regression with prescription drug misuse as the outcome variable and bullying victimization as the main explanatory variable.

Of the 9,974 adolescents, 13.1% misused prescription drugs. One in ten adolescents were victims of both school bullying and cyberbullying, 5.1% were victims of only cyberbullying, 9% were victims of only …