Prevalence and Pattern of Traditional Bullying, Amongst Secondary School Students in Yenagoa, Nigeria

Abstract

Introduction: Traditional bullying (face to face bullying, that occurs within or around the school premises) among secondary school students is a persistent global public health problem; with varying long lasting mental, physical and academic consequences, not only on the victims but also the bullies and bystanders. It is a common phenomenon that is not limited to physical harm and manifests in many forms such as, verbal, or relational aggression, social exclusion and cyber victims of bullying. Bullying is commonly embedded in power imbalances and can be a call for help from the bullies. Development of an efficient prevention and intervention strategy requires understanding of the causes (family issues, low self esteem or lack of positive role models) of traditional bullying. This study therefore, aimed to determine the prevalence and pattern oftraditional bullying among secondaryschool students in Yenagoa Local Government, Bayelsa State Nigeria, which would aid development and implementation of appropriate antibullying policies. Methods: Adescriptive cross-sectional study was conducted from September 2021to December 2021. Selection of the 1,108 students aged between 10-21years was done by a two-stage sampling technique. The 46-item Bully Survey questionnaire adapted in 2003 by Swearer et al was utilized for data collection. Quantitative data was summarised using descriptive statistics.Test of association was done using Chi-square and Fisher’s exact tests andbinomial logistic regression analysis was also done to examine associations between variables, withp-value of <0.05  considered significant. Results: Prevalence rates of 40.3%, 81.3%, and 86.3% were foundfor bullying perpetration, victimization and bystander respectively. Verbal bullying such as hauling of insults was the most common form of bullying behaviourperpetrated (64.8%); with sexual bullying being the least type observed (20%). Both bullying perpetration (46.9%) and victimization (88.3%) were significantly more common among female participants, while being a bullying bystander (99.4%) was commoner among male participants.Participants from junior classes were twice as more likely to perpetrate bullying(odds ratio[OR]:2.053, confidence interval[CI]:0.896-4.705). Also, those in schools with no anti-bullying policies were 1.26times more likely to be perpetrators of bullying ([OR] 1.269; CI: 0.229-7.031). School Class (p = 0.030) and absence of anti-bullying policy (p = 0.004) were significantly associated with bullying perpetration in the studied schools. Conclusion: The prevalence of traditional bullying among secondary school students in Yenagoa was very high. Wetherefore recommended that school authorities and the government should formulate appropriate school anti-bullying policies and implement same in order to curb the menace while shielding the weak groups from being victims of bullying in school.