Author(s): Alshareef N, Hussein H, Al Faisal W, El Sawaf E, Wasfy A, AlBehandy NS and Altheeb AAS
Background: Violence is affecting every community and every country in the world. It has become a global problem that threatens the lives and security of people everywhere. Because of its widespread, violence is considered now a human fact that cannot be avoided. No country or community is untouched by violence. Objectives: To study the epidemiological distributions of violence among adolescent in Dubai. Methods: This is a cross sectional study. The study was conducted among students in preparatory and secondary schools “Governmental and Private” in Dubai, U.A.E. A sample of 1054 students was randomly selected from preparatory and secondary schools in Dubai. A structured interview questionnaire was used to collect data from the students. Reliability of the questionnaire using: Cronbach’s alpha with Guttman split half reliability coefficient was carried out. Results: The majority of study sample live with both parents (84.9%). Those who feel love toward mother constituted 89.9%, 82% love father, 65.3% love older brother/sister, while only 23.2% like housemaid. The highest percentage of students reported punishment at home by preventing something he/she loves whether from mother (52.7%), father (47.9%), older brother/sister (31.8%), or housemaid (57.4%). Beating by mother, father, older brother/sister, or housemaid was reported by 10.2%, 15.4%, 21.3% and 2.9% respectively. About 41% of reported that they like school while 23.3% don’t like school either due to being afraid of teachers (10.6%) or afraid of one colleague (8.9%) or for other reasons (80.5%). About 17.0% of students reported absenteeism from school due to feeling unsafe at school or on the way to school for at least one day. Carrying sharp tools at school by student always or sometimes was reported in 13.3% of cases and by colleagues in 32.9%. Conclusion: It has been concluded that violent adolescents always have special behavioral characteristics on personality level, family level or social affiliations (groups, friends). Applying earlier preventive measures and handling adolescents at these stages will have very long term cost affective outcomes in relation to violence.
