UNAIR NEWS – The phenomenon of bullying among Indonesian youth often attract the attention of many parties. Ferry Efendi, S.Kep., Ns., M.Sc., Ph.D., a lecturer of FKp Universitas Airlangga, is one of them. According to him, the phenomenon of bullying is one of the most common forms of physical and emotional abuse in children and adolescents.
Not only that, he also stressed that bullying among teenagers is a global problem and is widely known to have a negative impact on victims. It refers to oppression or aggressive behavior with intention to hurt or abuse others in repetitive actions and involve an imbalance of power.
“Oppression that occurs in the school environment requires greater attention because school is a place for adolescents to carry out formal learning processes and, therefore, affect the quality of life for future generations,” he said.
The lecturer known well as Ferry also explained, Indonesia is one of the countries with a high rate of bullying, such as bullying behavior among adolescents, although the exact data is still unknown. As many as 40% of adolescents, he explained, had been intimidated at school and 32% reported that they had been victims of physical violence.
“Several studies have also highlighted factors related to bullying such as demographic factors, social factors, lifestyle factors and living and working conditions,” he said.
Understanding individual factors, he continued, can help understanding real situations faced by intimidated youth. Therefore, Ferry and the team conducted a study to investigate the factors associated with victims of bullying among adolescents in Indonesia based on secondary data from GSHS 2015. From the results of his research, Ferry said that the showed a high prevalence, 19.9 % of victims was reported among Indonesian teenagers at school.
“Factor of age, sex, alcohol, smoking, and loneliness show a positive correlation with bullying,” he said.
In the end, he emphasized that the study conducted provided preliminary data to inform policy makers about the prevalence and factors that correlate with bullying. For this reason, Ferry added, efforts to raise public awareness about bullying and prevention among students, other teenagers, parents or families, and society in general are needed to be promoted.
“Focusing on building an anti-bullying environment in schools might be useful to reduce the prevalence of bullying. The right intervention need to be carried out by various stakeholders to ensure that anti-bullying programs are implemented in all schools, “he stated.
Author: Nuri Hermawan
Editor: Khefti Al Mawalia
Full article available at:
https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/ijamh.ahead-of-print/ijamh-2019-0064/ijamh-2019-0064.xml
Ah Yusuf, Aziz Nashiruddin Habibie, Ferry Efendi, Iqlima Dwi Kurnia, Anna Kurniati. 2019 ‘Prevalence and correlates of being bullied among adolescents in Indonesia: results from the 2015 Global School-based Student Health Survey’, International Journal of Adolescent Medicine and Health. De Gruyter.doi: 10.1515/ijamh-2019-0064
