Prevalence and Factors Associated with Bullying among Female Students in Governmental Secondary Schools in Royal Commission of Yanbu City, 2018

Background: Bullying is a worldwide issue and is considered the most common form of violence between students and teachers in schools. Despite of that, it was not studied sufficiently in Saudi Arabia. Objectives: To assess the prevalence and determinants of bullying problem among female students in governmental secondary schools, in Royal Commission of Yanbu city, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Subjects and methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out at Taif city, including a representative random sample of male secondary schools enrolled in private and governmental schools throughout the academic year 2018-2019. Data were collected using a self-administered questionnaire. It included socio-demographic characteristics of the students as well as the Arabic version of Social Phobia Inventory (SPIN) to assess SAD among them. Results: The study included 360 female students with a 100% response rate. Their age ranged between 15 and 19 years with an arithmetic mean of 17.02 years and standard deviation (SD) of 0.87 years. The prevalence of bullying behaviour among them was 55.6%; 25.3% as victims, 6.7% as bullies and 23.6% as bully-victims. Multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that students with skin problems (Adjusted OR=2.82, 95% CI=1.29, 6.17, p=0.010), sight problems (Adjusted OR=1.89, 95% CI=1.02-3.48, p=0.043), smokers (Adjusted OR=3.38, 95% CI=1.51-7.54, p=0.003), those with 3-5 and >5 close friends (Adjusted OR=3.42, 95% CI=1.71-6.83, p=0.001 and Adjusted OR=3.65, 95% CI=1.96-6.81, p<0.001, respectively), students of employee mothers (Adjusted OR=1.67, 95% CI=1.00-2.79, p=0.051), and those whose fathers were private sector employees, business/trading and manual workers (Adjusted OR=2.16, 95% CI=1.12-4.16, p=0.021, Adjusted OR=3.01, 95% CI=1.09-8.31, p=0.034, and Adjusted OR=3.94, 95% CI=1.06-14.69, p=0.041, respectively) were at higher risk for involvement in bullying behaviour than their counterparts. Conclusion: Bullying behaviour is a prevalent problem among female secondary schools at Royal Commission of Yanbu city with identified several risk factors