Personal, relational and school factors associated with involvement in fights with weapons among school-age youth in Brazil: a multilevel ecological approach

Abstract

ObjectivesTo investigate the association between personal, relational and school factors with involvement in fights with weapon among Brazilian school-age youth.MethodsUsing data from the Adolescent School-Based Health Survey 2015 (n=102.072), we conducted multilevel logistic regression models.ResultsIFW was associated with female sex (OR=0.45), and with older age (OR=1.15), previous involvement in physical violence (OR=2.05), history of peer verbal (OR=1.14) and domestic victimization (OR=2.11), alcohol use (OR=2.42) and drug use (OR=3.23). The relational variables (e.g., parent's supervision) were mostly negatively associated with IFW. At the school level, attending public school and attending schools in violent surroundings were both positively associated with IFW. The intraclass correlation coefficient estimated in the empty model showed that 5.77% of the variance of IFW was at school level. When all individual- and school-level variables were included in the model, the proportional changes in variance were 61.7 and 71.55%, respectively.ConclusionsIFW is associated with personal, relational and school factors. Part of the variance in IFW by school is explained by characteristics of the school context.