Prevalence and impact factors of school violent perpetrator behaviors among middle school students

  Objective  To examine related factors of school violent perpetrator behaviors in middle school students.

  Methods  Totally 1 200 students were selected with stratified cluster sampling in one junior and one senior high school in a city of Shandong province and were asked to complete the Self-Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS), Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D), Buss and Perry Aggression Scale, Impulsiveness Scale and a self-designed questionnaire anonymously in November 2016. Logistic regression model analysis was adopted in data analysis.

  Results  Of the 1 094 students with valid response, 11.1% reported behaviors of being a perpetrator of campus violence; more boy students than the girl students reported the behaviors (16.3% vs. 6.9%, P < 0.001); more junior students of third grade reported the behaviors than the junior students of first and second grade and the senior students of first grade (21.0% vs.12.7%, 9.0%, 8.6 %, P = 0.001); more students of living only with their father or mother reported the behaviors than the students living with both of their parents (20.5% vs. 10.4%, P = 0.007). Multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed following significant factors of perpetrator behaviors of the students: male gender (odds ratio OR= 2.042, P = 0.002), being a third grade junior student (versus a student of first grade: OR = 0.452, P = 0.047; versus second grade: OR = 1.961, P = 0.046), living with only father or mother (OR = 2.352, P = 0.014), unable to timely exit from web pages with illegal and harmful information when surfing internet (OR = 1.843, P = 0.035), with a preference for virtual world (often vs. never: OR = 2.374, P = 0.016; always vs. never: OR = 4.432, P = 0.003), having a positive attitude towards violence-based personal loyalty (OR = 3.004, P < 0.001), aggression tendency (OR = 1.682, P = 0.042), and anxiety (OR = 1.909, P = 0.007).

  Conclusion  Male gender, living with one of their parents, unable to timely exit from web pages with illegal and harmful information when surfing internet, having a positive attitude towards violence-based personal loyalty, preference for virtual world, anxiety, aggression, and grade of schooling are major impact factors for perpetrator behaviors of campus violence among middle school students.