Indirect Path from Cyberbullying to Suicide Attempts: Hopelessness as a Central Bridge in a Risk Behavior Network

Despite growing concern about cyberbullying as a contributor to the adolescent mental health crisis, its position within the broader network of co-occurring risks remains theoretically unresolved. Guided by the Three-Step Theory of suicide, the current study conceptualized cyberbullying as a distal contextual risk that influences suicidality indirectly through hopelessness. An Ising model network was estimated in a nationally representative sample of 9621 U.S. high school students from the 2023 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, including cyberbullying victimization and 13 other risk behaviors. The results showed that hopelessness was the most central node (Strength z = 1.89) and the strongest bridge (Bridge Strength z = 2.35), linking mental health to other domains. The shortest path from cyberbullying to suicide attempts was direct (path length = 2.37), though the indirect pathway through hopelessness and suicidal ideation was marginally longer (2.48), and removing hopelessness reduced cyberbullying’s bridge strength from 3.00 to 2.39 (Δ = −0.61). Network comparison tests revealed no significant sex differences in global strength or structure, and bootstrap analyses confirmed excellent stability. These findings position hopelessness as a central bridging node in the adolescent risk network.