Bullying and its risk factors among elementary school children in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Abstract

School bullying is a form of violence which is one of the common and serious school problems. Students in the school could be a bully, victim, bully-victim or not involved at all. Schools bullying presents in a physical, verbal, or social type. Bullying had an effect on the students, such as low academic performance, acquired risky actions or becoming more aggressive in the future. This study aims to calculate the prevalence of bullying and determine the pattern of bullying and risk factors among school children. This is an analytic cross-sectional study, conducted on students of a private elementary school in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. 268 students 145 were girls and 123 were boys from first three grades were interviewed using the Peer Interaction in Primary School Questionnaire designed by Tarshis and Huffman and Adolescent Peer Relations Instrument by Parada, R. are used to build the study questionnaire. predesigned questionnaire. Most of the participants were bully-victims. Bullying was higher among higher graders with high proportion among males. There was a statistically significant relationship between exposure to school bullying and being bully (p < 0.05). Being bullied increases the occurrence of bullying among the studied school children. Victimization, seeking attention and being angry were the significant risk factors that control the occurrence of school bullying (p<0.05). Raise the awareness among school children about bullying and its consequence, encourage school administration to improve students’ supervision in all school premises and deal with students’ complaints seriously, and more studies are needed in Saudi Arabia targeting bullying in this age group.

Keywords: Elementary school, bullying, victimization, risk factors