BULLYING IN GUADALAJARA, MEXICO: A SOCIO-EPIDEMIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

INTRODUCTION:  Bullying is a real problem in Mexican schools today; however, is not common in our context analyzing bullying from a socio-epidemiological  perspective. In such sense, this paper seeks to determine the prevalence of victims of school bullying among youth enrolled in public secondary schools in the metropolitan area of Guadalajara, Mexico and to identify factors associated with being a victim of bullying in the period 2009-2011

METHODS:  An analytic cross-sectional study was carried out. A multistage probability sampling was designed for the public secondary schools, in which 1,706 students between 11 and 16 years old were studied. A questionnaire with four sections was applied in order to identify victims of bullying. A logistic regression model was then used to measure the association between the factors analyzed and being a victim of bullying.

RESULTS:  The prevalence of school bullying was 17.6% (95% CI15.8; 19.5). Personal factors, such as the feeling of not being accepted by peers or not spending much time with friends, being mistreated by his brothers, have parents with low educational level or have physical impairments were the factors with the strongest statistically significant association with being a victim of bullying.

CONCLUSIONS:  Family and friends play an important role in delineating the adolescent status as victim of bullying