Stepwise Development of BullyDown, a Text Messaging-Based Bullying Prevention Program for Middle School Students (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Bullying is a significant public health issue among middle school-aged youth. Current prevention programs have only a moderate impact. Cell phone text messaging technology (mHealth) can potentially overcome existing challenges, particularly those that are structural (e.g., limited time that teachers can devote to non-educational topics). To date, the description of the development of empirically-based mHealth-delivered bullying prevention programs are lacking in the literature. OBJECTIVE To describe the development of BullyDown, a text messaging-based bullying prevention program for middle school students, guided by the Social-Emotional Learning model. METHODS We implemented five activities over a 12-month period: (1) national focus groups (n = 37 youth) to gather acceptability of program components; (2) development of content; (3) a national Content Advisory Team (n = 9 youth) to confirm content tone; and (4) an internal team test of software functionality followed by a beta test (n = 22 youth) to confirm the enrollment protocol and the feasibility and acceptability of the program. RESULTS The focus group recruitment experience suggests that Facebook advertising was less efficient than using a recruitment firm. Sixth grade youth had difficulty engaging in the bulletin board-style focus groups, suggesting that participants may need to be in at least 7th grade to have the writing skills for this research activity. Feedback from the Content Advisory Team suggests a preference for 2-4 brief text messages per day. Beta test findings suggest that BullyDown is both feasible and acceptable: 100% of youth completed the follow-up survey, 86% of whom liked the program. CONCLUSIONS Text messaging appears to be a feasible and acceptable delivery method for bullying prevention programming delivered to middle school students.