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Adolescents expressing school massacre threats online: something to be extremely worried about?

BACKGROUND: Peer groups identified through the Internet have played an important role in facilitating school shootings. The aim of the present study was to determine whether the adolescents who had expressed a school massacre threat online differed from those who had expressed one offline. METHODS:...

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Autores principales: Lindberg, Nina, Oksanen, Atte, Sailas, Eila, Kaltiala-Heino, Riittakerttu
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2012
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3536623/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23241433
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1753-2000-6-39
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author Lindberg, Nina
Oksanen, Atte
Sailas, Eila
Kaltiala-Heino, Riittakerttu
author_facet Lindberg, Nina
Oksanen, Atte
Sailas, Eila
Kaltiala-Heino, Riittakerttu
author_sort Lindberg, Nina
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Peer groups identified through the Internet have played an important role in facilitating school shootings. The aim of the present study was to determine whether the adolescents who had expressed a school massacre threat online differed from those who had expressed one offline. METHODS: A nationwide explorative study was conducted on a group of 77 13- to 18-year-old adolescents sent for adolescent psychiatric evaluation between November 2007 and June 2009 by their general practitioners because they had threatened to carry out a school massacre. According to the referrals and medical files, 17 adolescents expressed the threat online and 60 did so offline. RESULTS: The adolescents who expressed their threats online were more likely to be bullied and depressed, had more often pronounced the threat with clear intention and had more often made preparations to carry out the act. In contrast, the adolescents who expressed their threats offline were more likely to have problems with impulse control and had showed delinquent behavior prior to the massacre threats. CONCLUSIONS: The Finnish adolescents who expressed their massacre threats online could be considered a riskier group than the group who expressed the threats offline. Further studies with larger sample sizes are needed to elucidate this important topic.
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spelling pubmed-35366232013-01-08 Adolescents expressing school massacre threats online: something to be extremely worried about? Lindberg, Nina Oksanen, Atte Sailas, Eila Kaltiala-Heino, Riittakerttu Child Adolesc Psychiatry Ment Health Research BACKGROUND: Peer groups identified through the Internet have played an important role in facilitating school shootings. The aim of the present study was to determine whether the adolescents who had expressed a school massacre threat online differed from those who had expressed one offline. METHODS: A nationwide explorative study was conducted on a group of 77 13- to 18-year-old adolescents sent for adolescent psychiatric evaluation between November 2007 and June 2009 by their general practitioners because they had threatened to carry out a school massacre. According to the referrals and medical files, 17 adolescents expressed the threat online and 60 did so offline. RESULTS: The adolescents who expressed their threats online were more likely to be bullied and depressed, had more often pronounced the threat with clear intention and had more often made preparations to carry out the act. In contrast, the adolescents who expressed their threats offline were more likely to have problems with impulse control and had showed delinquent behavior prior to the massacre threats. CONCLUSIONS: The Finnish adolescents who expressed their massacre threats online could be considered a riskier group than the group who expressed the threats offline. Further studies with larger sample sizes are needed to elucidate this important topic. BioMed Central 2012-12-15 /pmc/articles/PMC3536623/ /pubmed/23241433 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1753-2000-6-39 Text en Copyright ©2012 Lindberg et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research
Lindberg, Nina
Oksanen, Atte
Sailas, Eila
Kaltiala-Heino, Riittakerttu
Adolescents expressing school massacre threats online: something to be extremely worried about?
title Adolescents expressing school massacre threats online: something to be extremely worried about?
title_full Adolescents expressing school massacre threats online: something to be extremely worried about?
title_fullStr Adolescents expressing school massacre threats online: something to be extremely worried about?
title_full_unstemmed Adolescents expressing school massacre threats online: something to be extremely worried about?
title_short Adolescents expressing school massacre threats online: something to be extremely worried about?
title_sort adolescents expressing school massacre threats online: something to be extremely worried about?
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3536623/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23241433
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1753-2000-6-39
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