Association between hygiene habits and school bullying behaviors among middle school students in Hunan province

  Objective  To explore the association between hygiene habits and school bullying behaviors among middle school students.

  Methods  Using stratified multistage cluster sampling, we conducted a on-site self-administered survey among 8 224 students recruited at 32 middle schools in urban and rural regions across Hunan province during April – July 2018. Olweus Bully/Victim Questionnaire (OBVQ) and a self-designed questionnaire were used to collect relevant data for analyses on the association of hygiene habits and bullying incidence in the students.

  Results  Of the 8 224 respondents with valid information, 54.3% and 57.1% reported good oral and hand hygiene behavior. The reported frequencies of physical bullying victimization and physical/relational/cyber bullying perpetration differed significantly by oral hygiene (P < 0.05 for all); while, the frequencies of verbal/physical/cyber bullying victimization and verbal/physical/relational/cyber bullying perpetration differed significantly by hand hygiene among the students (all P < 0.05). Multivariate logistic regression analysis indicated that the students reporting poor hand hygiene were more likely to be exposed to school bullying victimization (odds ratio OR = 1.476, 95% confidence interval 95% CI: 1.303 – 1.672) and the students with poor hand hygiene were more likely to conduct school bullying perpetration (OR = 1.575, 95% CI: 1.280 – 1.936).

  Conclusion  Hand hygiene is associated with bullying behaviors among middle school students and promoting hand hygiene may be helpful for the prevention of bullying among middle school students.