This work was carded out on adolescent students in Mansoura to study the prevalence, determi­nants and health impacts of violence among secondary school students. A total of 1088 students were selected by cluster sampling tech­niques from public general and tech­nical secondary schools of both urban and rural areas. Data was collected through an anonymous self-administered questionnaire dur­ing the class time.
More than 28% of students initiat­ed violence within the past year prior to the study. The vast majority (82.3%) of these assaults was initiat­ed with bare hands. The victims were injured in 20.1% of cases. The com-
monest injury was contusion (74.2%) and wounds (35.5%).
Multivariate logistic regression analysis pointed to eight predictive variables for violent behavior. These are male gender, imitation of televi­sion violence, risk-taker, often fight verbally, often cruel to animals, dis­ruptive in class, subjected to corporal punishment and contribution to family income.
There is a need for both communi­ty and school-based intervention pro­gram addressing the problem of vio­lence and its modifiable risk factors.