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Abstract Bullying is a common problem among children around the world. Bullying can have harmful and long lasting consequences for children, not only physical effects but also children may experience psychological problem, including depression and anxiety. Bullying can make children feel constantly stressed and insecure, feel on edge all time, unaccepted, isolated, angry and withdrawn or giving up. Bullying able to put children under pressure so, they miss out opportunities of friendships or social engagements. American Psychological Association recommended that parents, teachers, children and nurses have curial role in preventing bullying for creating a safe environment where children can thrive, socially and academically without being scared. Therefore,the present study was carried out to identify the relationship between bullying, anxiety level and behavioral changes among young children. The study was conducted in pediatric out patient clinic. A convenience sampling of 200 children with their mothers comprised the subjects. Four tools were used to collect the data. Tool one includes characteristics of children and their Mothers and Medical History Assessment Sheet it was developed by the researcher based on recent national and international guidelines of related literature. It includes three parts Part I: characteristics of Children such as: age, sex, religious, and number of siblings and order of child. Part II:Children medical history: such as presence of chronic diseases, allergy and congenital anomalies. Part III: characteristics of Mothers such as: age, level of education, working status, type of family and socioeconomic level. Tool two includes Gatehouse Bullying Scale (GBS) It was developed byBond et al. (2007). It assessed the occurrence and type of bullying (overt and covert). Test-retest reliability (kappa) ranged from 0.63 to 0.83. Tool validity was measured by Cronbach’s alpha ranged from 0.83 to 0.90. The GBS consists of 4 main items with 3 subscale questions for each one. The response of the 4 main items is Yes or No, while the response of 3 subscale questions is ranged from one to three. Scale score computed by taking the mean score of questions across the fouritems. It categorized as the following: • Score 0 represents not bullied. • Score 1 represents bullied but not frequently and not upset. • Score 2 refers to bullied, either frequently or upset, but not both. • Score 3 represents bullied frequently and upset. Tool three which includes multidimensional anxiety scale for children(MASC).It was developed byMaruish (1999). It was developed to assess and measures a broader range of emotional, physical, cognitive and behavioral anxiety symptoms in children aged from 6 -19 years. Test –retest reliability was satisfactory to excellent with coefficient Relation = 0.933. The tool validity (all Cronbach’s alphas ≥.78). It consists of 39 items with total score ranged from 0-117. It is4 point Likert scale ranged from 0-3.Score 0 represents never true, score 1 refers to rarely true,score 2 refers to sometimes true,score 3 refers to often true. The total score can be classified as the following: • Score 0 refers to no anxiety. • from 1- 39 refers tomild anxiety. • from 40 -78 refers tomoderate anxiety. • from 79-117 refers tosever anxiety. Tool four which includes the child behavior checklist (CBCL). It was developed by Achenbach, (1999). It was designed to assess behavioral and emotional problems for school-aged children aged from 6-18 years.. It also designed to assess social problems, thought problems, attention problems, rule-breaking behavior and aggressive behavior. Test -retest reliability were 0.90 and validity of scale measured by Cronbach’s alphas ranged from 0.72 to 0.97. The CBCL consists of a checklist of 113 items of child behaviors with total score ranged from 0-226 points. It is a three-point Likert scale ranged from 0 – 2. Score 0 refers to absent, score 1 refers to occurs sometimes, score 2 refers to occurs often. Total score can be classified as the following: Score 0 refers to no behavior changes.from 1-75 refers to minimal behavior changes.from 76-150 refers to moderate behavior changes.from 151-226 refers to sever to extreme changes. Every mother with her child was interviewed separately to collect the necessary data after greeting them and explanation the aim of the study. Every mother with her child was interviewed individually in the room beside the waiting area. Every mother was individually interviewed to collect the necessary data and have the right to withdraw at any time. Every child and his mother were interviewed together to avoid child anxious. Each interview session lasted approximately from 15 - 20 minutes in the previously selected settings to collect the necessary data. After data collection, the necessary statistical analysis was done. The main findings of the current study were as follows: The age of more than one third of bullied children (38.0 %) ranged from 10 to 12 years and about 33 % of them were aged from 8-10 years. Moreover, it was found that nearly two third of bullied children (66.0%)were males. The minority of studied children were had medical history for chronic disease and congenital anomalies (6.5 %). The majority of studied bullied children were exposed to bullying through teasing or naming (97.5%). More than half of studied bullied children were deliberated left out of things recently (57.5%). Slightly less than one third of studied bullied children were threatened physically or actually hurt by another one (32.5 %). About half of studied bullied children were quite upsetting from exposing to bullying. About half of bullied children exposed to anxiety related to bullying through feeling tense or uptight, nervous, feeling strange, afraid of other people thinking that they were stupid, afraid other children will make fun at them, scaring from bad weather, the dark, heights or animals,shaken hands and try to do every thing right. More than two thirds of studied bullied children were had moderate anxiety level (69.5%). About half of bullied children faced behavior changes crying a lot, easily. Jealous, teasing a lot, stubborn, sullen, irritable and sudden change in mood. The majority of studied bullied children were had moderate behavior changes (90.5 %). More than two thirds of studied bullied children who were frequently bullied had moderate anxiety level(74.6 %). The majority of children who were frequently bullied and exhibited moderate behavior changes (91.7%). There were no statistical differences between degree of bullying and level of behavior changes. Half of children who were not frequently bullied and upset aged from 8 to less than 10 years (50%). More than half of children who were not frequently bullied had one sibling (57.1%). All children who were not frequently bullied had no chronic disease (100%). All children who were not frequently bullied had no congenital defects (100%). There were no statistical significant differences between degree of bullying, characteristics and medical history of bullied children. There were no statistical significant differences between anxiety level, characteristics and medical history of bullied children. There was no statistical significant difference between degree of bullying and level of anxiety among bullied children. There was statistical significant differences found between behavior changes and age of children (p = 0.012). There were statistical significant found between behavior changes and order of children (p= 0.013). More than half of bullied children who exhibited minimal behavior changes aged from 10 to 12 years old (57.9%). |