Bullying among middle school students: a cross sectional study

Abstract

Background: Bullying is threat or physical use of force, aiming at the individual, another person, specific community or group which can result in injury, death, physical damage or some development disorders or deficiency. These actions can consist of physical contact, verbal, through obscene gestures, or through intentional exclusion from group. Despite the common assumption that bullying is a normal part of childhood and encompasses minor teasing and harassment, researchers increasingly find that bullying is a problem that can be detrimental to students’ well-being. Bullying is a psychological problem connected with public health. Keeping this background in mind, this study was conducted to find out the prevalence of bullying and its association with socio-demographic characteristics in school going children.Methods: This cross-sectional study was done among 921 students of Class VII and VIII, belonging to both Government and Private schools in Imphal West District, Manipur in 2017, using a self administered questionnaire. Data was entered in IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, version 21.0. Armonk, NY: IBM Corp software for windows. Descriptive statistics like mean, SD and percentage was used. Chi square test was used to test for association between proportions of the data. A probability value of <0.05 was taken as significant.Results: Out of 921 participants, 32.4% were victims of bullying, 16.7% participants were both bully and victim. Decrease in self-confidence, reluctance to go to school and feeling unsafe at school were the consequences after getting bullied.Conclusions: Almost half of the students were victims of bullying. The high prevalence of bullying and victimization shown in this study suggests the need of prevention and intervention programs at the start of elementary school.