Prevalence of truancy among school-going adolescents in three South Asian countries: association with potential risk and protective factors

ABSTRACT

We examined the prevalence and evaluated the associated risk and protective factors of adolescent school truancy through sex-stratified models by analysing 7562 adolescent data from the Global School-based Student Health Survey (GSHS) of three South Asian countries: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. The prevalence of school truancy was 26.6%. The highest truancy was found in Bangladesh (37%), followed by Pakistan (24.7%) and Afghanistan (14.7%). Male adolescents had a 2.05 times higher relative risk ratio (RRR) [95% CI: 1.29, 3.28] of having truancy of ≥ 3 days (last month) than the female respondents. Respondents of older age, bullied, and injured had significantly higher RRR of truancy of ≥ 3 days than their counterparts. Household food insecurity also significantly increased male and female students’ RRR of school truancy. However, peer and high parental support significantly reduced the RRR of 1–2 days and ≥ 3 days of truancy of male and female students.

KEYWORDS:

• Truancy
• Bangladesh
• Afghanistan
• Pakistan
• Adolescents
• Global School-based Student Health Survey (GSHS)

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

CRediT Author Contribution Statement

Md. Khalid Hasan: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation, Formal Analysis, Writing – Original Draft, Writing – Review & Editing, Supervision. Helal Uddin: Conceptualization, Writing – Original Draft, Writing – Review & Editing. Tahmina Bintay Younos: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal Analysis, Writing – Review & Editing. Nur A Habiba Mukta: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal Analysis, Writing – Review & Editing. Dilara Zahid: Conceptualization, Writing – Review & Editing.

Data availability statement

Data associated with this study has been deposited at WHO and can be downloaded from https://extranet.who.int/ncdsmicrodata/index.php/catalog/GSHS.

Ethics statement

Ethical approval for the survey was granted by the World Health Organization’s Ethical Committee. In addition, the GSHS survey was authorized in each country by their respective national government administration and institutional review board. The data sets are freely downloaded from https://extranet.who.int/ncdsmicrodata/index.php/catalog/GSHS

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Notes on contributors

Md. Khalid Hasan

Md. Khalid Hasan is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Disaster Management and Vulnerability Studies, University of Dhaka. His research has focused on public health, disaster preparedness, disaster management, climate change impact and adaptation, adolescent health and wellbeing, and health in disasters and emergencies.

Helal Uddin

Helal Uddin is a Senior Lecturer in the Sociology Department at East West University, Bangladesh. Currently, He is pursuing his Erasmus Mundus Master’s in Public Health in Disasters conducted by the University of Oviedo, Spain, and Karolinska Institute, Sweden. His research interests focus on social determinants of health, childhood adversity, and child and adult health.

Tahmina Bintay Younos

Tahmina Bintay Younos is a graduate student of the Department of Geosciences at Texas Tech University. She completed her Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Disaster Management from the Institute of Disaster Management and Vulnerability Studies, University of Dhaka. Her research interests are disaster preparedness and management, public health and wellbeing, GIS and RS applications in disasters and emergencies, and climate change adaptations.

Nur A Habiba Mukta

Nur A Habiba Mukta graduated in Sociology from East West University, Bangladesh. Right now, she works as an independent researcher. Her area of interest includes maternal and child health and sociology of health and illness.

Dilara Zahid

Dilara Zahid is an Associate Professor and Director of the Institute of Disaster Management and Vulnerability Studies, University of Dhaka. Her current research focuses on child protection, education in emergency, disaster preparedness, disaster governance, and youth volunteerism.