Prevalence of bullying victimisation and associated factors among in-school adolescents in Mozambique

Abstract

The study aimed to assess the prevalence of bullying victimisation and its correlates among middle school students in Mozambique. We analysed cross-sectional survey data from the 2015 Mozambique Global School-based Health Survey (GSHS). The sample consisted of 1 918 participants (median age = 15 and interquartile range = 3 years). Past-month bullying victimisation prevalence was 45.5%, infrequent bullying victimisation (1–2 days/month) was, and frequent bullying victimisation (3–30 days/month) was 13.4%. In adjusted multinomial logistic regression analysis, younger age, physical attack, involvement in physical fight, injury, sexual debut, and psychological distress were associated with bullying victimisation experience. Almost half of the school students with bullying victimisation experience reported with a history of interpersonal violence and injury and psychological distress. This suggests the need for interventions to prevent or support learners with bullying victimisation experience to take into account antecedent predisposing risk factors to bullying victimisation.

Keywords:

• adolescents
• bullying victimisation
• correlates
• Mozambique
• protective factors
• risk behaviour

Acknowledgments

The World Health Organization is acknowledged for making the data publicly available, and the country coordinator from Mozambique (Augusto Nunes) for the assistance in GSHS data collection.

ORCID

Karl Peltzer http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5980-0876

Supa Pengpid http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7714-8869