Violence and Unintentional Injuries Among School Students Aged 15 - 19 Years in Jordan

Despite considerable research on violence and unintentional injuries among Jordanian students that focused primarily on those aged 13 - 15 years, very little attention has been paid to such injuries regarding 15 - 19 year-old students. The purpose of this study was to estimate the prevalence of violence and unintentional injuries, among the Jordanian school students aged 15 - 19 years, and to compare the patterns of these behaviors between male and female students. This descriptive-analytic cross-sectional study comprised 750 secondary school students and carried out on randomly selected eight comprehensive secondary schools (four schools for females and four schools for males) from the public educational directorate located in Amman. A modified Arabic version of the general school health survey questionnaire was used to measure violence-related behaviors and unintentional injuries. The findings showed that 26.8% of students had been physically attacked. Overall, 43.3% of students were involved in a physical fight and 20.1% were bullied. Overall, 45.3% of students sustained serious injuries, of whom 31.2% were engaged in playing or training for sports, 35.6% were injured in a fall, and 60.3% hurt themselves by accident, with broken bone or dislocated joint presenting the most serious injuries. There was a difference between male and female students regarding physical attack, physical fight, and injuries. It is necessary to implement an effective school health program including social and physical environments that promote safety and prevent injuries and violence.