Prevalence of Truancy and Its Associated Factors among School-Going Malaysian Adolescents: Data from Global School-Based Health Survey 2012
- 1 Institute for Public Health, Ministry of Health, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
- 2 Keningau Division Health District, Sabah, Malaysia
- 3 Institute for Public Health, Ministry of Health, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
- 4 Institute for Public Health, Ministry of Health, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
- 5 Institute for Public Health, Ministry of Health, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
- 6 Institute for Public Health, Ministry of Health, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Abstract
This study aimed to examine the prevalence of truancy and its associated factors among school going Malaysian adolescents. The Malaysia Global School-based Health Survey (GSHS) was conducted from February to April 2012 involving 28,933 students aged 12 - 17 years old. A two-stage cluster sampling was used to select the schools and students with an overall response rate of 88.6%. The data were obtained using the GSHS questionnaire. The prevalence of truancy was 30.8% and significantly higher among male than female (32.9% vs 28.7%). The factors associated with truancy were current smoker (aOR: 2.23; 95% CI: 2.03 - 2.46), current drug user (aOR: 2.23; 95% CI: 1.52 - 3.29), current alcohol use (aOR: 1.39; 95% CI: 1.24 - 1.56), having been bullied (aOR: 1.31; 95% CI: 1.22 - 1.42) and not currently live with both parents (aOR: 1.25; 95% CI: 1.16 - 1.35). High truancy among school going adolescents warrants a new effective strategy to control truancy in Malaysia.
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