Saudi child bullying in primary grades schools ‎ ‎, the case of Jeddah, Saudi ‎Arabia ‏‎ ‎‏ ‏

Purpose: The purpose is to describe the prevalence of the different types of bullying including bullying ‎physical in nature and psychological, and others that are psycho-physical. Also to describe the factors ‎predisposing to bullying, such as characteristics of student, school and home ‎

Methods: Between 2018 and 2019 mother of children aged from 7 to 18 year old were interviewed. ‎The sample was cross sectional convenience sample of n=569. The data gathered estimates the ‎exposure the school children to bullying and used regression analysis to the estimate the relevance of ‎childe factor, (age and self-esteem), school (perception of student of bullying) and home environment ‎‎(parental closeness).‎
Results: Our study populations were mostly females at 66.8%, and show a mean age of 14.8year. The ‎majority 16-18 years at the percentage of 49.1%, and the youngest of 7-12 years old were at 23.3%. ‎Children Self-reported as ever being a bully at 6.5% and chronic and multiple bullying ranged at the ‎range of.9%-1.4%. The exposure of students to types of bullying is (13.2% for verbal bullying, 9.6% for ‎damage and stealing of belongings, 8.9%. Exposure to social bullying, 5.3% for social isolation, and, ‎‎5.8% Group prejudice bullying, 4.7% Cyber-bullying, and 3.5% Sexual bullying. Most of the study ‎children enjoyed closeness of both parents at 62.2% as compared to both parents being away ‎from the children at 13.7%. ‎
Discussion: Females are associated more with Physical bullying, while males were associated more ‎with both physical and psychological such as cyber bullying, sexual bullying, and being forced to do ‎things. The association between age and all types of bullying was significant and the strongest for to ‎psychological such as verbal, social isolation, prejudice to groups. Also the association of self-esteem ‎was significant for all types of bullying and stronger for psychological bullying.‎