Original Paper

This is a cross-sectional study on school bullying involving 410 standard six students from seven national primary schools in the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur. Information on bullying, victimization and bully-victim were gathered using a Malaysian selfrating bullying questionnaire. Socio demographic characteristics of the respondents were also obtained. 41.2% of these children reported having been victims of bullies whilst another 17.6% who had been bullied turned aggressor (bully-victims). Only 2.4% admitted to being the bully. Significant socio demographic characteristics include sex, ethnicity and academic performance were assessed. In the multivariate analysis, the bullies (OR=9.19, CI=1.74-8.45) and the bully-victims (OR=11.43, CI=1.7-73.08) were significantly associated with being male. Similarly, having at least six siblings were significantly associated with bullies (OR=14.33, CI=1.66-123.66), and bully-victims (OR=16.88, CI=1.67-170.60). Victims were significantly associated with Indian ethnicity (OR=6.23, CI=1.14-34.07) and having older fathers (OR=0.87, CI=0.78-0.96). This study suggests that school bullying is common even in the primary schools. The significant socio demographic characteristics identified above help us understand the profiles of children involved in school bullying. Future studies are needed to look into the aetiology and mechanism of such a problem so that steps can be taken to curb the problem before it becomes more severe.