Violence toward the young at adolescent period in a rural area of Malatya province and related factors

The aim of this study is to determine the violence the young at adolescent period in a rural area exposed to at home, school, street and to research the relationship between the violence and socio-demographic features, self-esteem level and sublime behavioral features.A cross-sectional research was carried out in three sets by the addition of two sets from rural areas of Hekimhan district center of Malatya province This research was carried out on 410 adolescents by the stratified sampling method with the proportional of settlement populations. The questionnaire has been conducted in the supervision of the researcher.60.2% of adolescents who were participated in this study was male and 39.8% was female. Of all the adolescents surveyed, 53.7% are between ages 14-16, 23.7% are under the age of 13, and 22.7% are over the age of 17. 66.3% of the adolescent are at high school level, and 33.7% are at primary school level.41.5% of the adolescents expressed that they had subjected to physical violence at home one or more times, and 55.2% expressed they had subjected to psychological violence at home one or more times. The percentage of adolescents? subjected to physical violence at school one or more times is 42.2%, and that of adolescents subjected to psychological violence at school at least once is 58.1%. The percentage of adolescents subjected to physical violence at neighborhood one or more times is 41.5%, and that of adolescents subjected to psychological violence at neighborhood at least once is 57.9%.In the research, a significant relationship has been found between the violence and age, gender, mother?s education level, father?s education level of the adolescent (p<0.05). The findings of this research conducted in a rural area show a similarity to those that conducted in an urban area.As the level of self-esteem of the adolescents increases, the percentage of physical violence at school increases by 11.2%; as the level of sublime behavior increases, the percentage of physical violence at home increases by 13.9% (p<0.05).In order to prevent violence, one of the important public health problems, beside increasing the education level of the rural families and enhancing the socio-economical statutes of the families it can be recommended to conduct studies to increase the self-respect levels of the adolescents.