The Relationship Between Psychophysical Indicators and Hostile Behavior Among School-aged Children

Objectives: The health of school-aged children is measured using normal physical and psychological indicators. The most common behavioral problem among children is hostility, which increases and has a negative impact. This study aims to assess psychophysical indicators and hostile behavior among school-aged children and to detect the relationship between this behavior and psychophysical indicators. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in Al-Najaf governmental schools. The cluster sample included 384 (girls and boys) school-aged children. Data were collected using an adopted Arabic version of the questionnaire to test psychophysical indicators and hostile behaviors. Experts in this field confirmed the tool’s content validity, and its reliability was obtained using Cronbach’s α (0.88 and 0.92). Results: This study showed that most children are boys (62.2%), aged 8-10 years (46.1%), and in the first and second stages (42.5%). About (51.8%) had hostile behavior extending from mild (35.9%) to severe (8.1%). While psychophysical indicators (58.1%) were abnormally assessed, all physical indicators (70%) were normally assessed in children. Finally, the relationship between hostility and psychophysical indicators are significant at (P=0.012) and a strong positive correlation is observed between them (0.94). Discussion: This study concluded that more than half of children have hostile behavior and problems with psychophysical indicators, but some indicators are normal, such as body mass index (BMI) percentile, heart rate, breathing, cognitive, and movement indicators. Also, this study concluded that the psychophysical indicators are abnormal among children, which increased the severity and symptoms of hostile behavior among them. This study recommends increasing parents’ awareness of mental health by teaching them how to nurture their children and integrate programs in the education system, especially in the primary school curriculum, and how to control their children’s anger and accept a situation that triggers and prevents hostile behavior.