Gender differences in the association between health literacy and bully victimization among middle school students / 中国学校卫生

ABSTRACT

Objective@#To explore the association between middle school students health literacy and bully victimization and associated sex difference, and to provide guidance for bully prevention in adolescents.@*Methods@#During November 2017 to January 2018, 18 900 junior and senior high school students were enrolled from Hefei of Anhui Province, Shenyang of Liaoning Province, Yangjiang of Guangdong Province and Chongqing by multistage cluster sampling. A self rated questionnaires were used to collect demographic information, health literacy, and bully victimization. Group differences by different characteristics and the association between health literacy and bully victimization were analyzed.@*Results@#The detection rates of campus and cyber bullying victimization were 15.8% (2 992/18 900) and 9.1% (1 723/18 900). Boys, junior high school students, students with poor family financial status and few close friends had a detection rate of 28.0%, 18.8%, 23.3%, and 33.6% of school bullying, which are higher than those of the control group ( χ 2=225.64, 148.07, 141.13, 143.49, P <0.01); boys, students with poor household income and few close friends, the detection rates of cyber bullying were 10.9%, 14.4%, and 20.1%, respectively, are higher than the control group ( χ 2=62.96, 112.82, 88.49, P <0.01). Multivariate Logistic regression analysis indicated that students with low overall and dimensions scores of health literacy were more likely to suffer from campus and cyber bullying, except for the dimension of physical activity. In addition, at all levels of health literacy, males are more likely to be bullied than females ( P <0.05).@*Conclusion@#Health literacy of middle school students is related to bully victimization, which is sex specific. Intervention programs of bullying should focus on health literacy enhancement.