Engl. transl.: Social relations and life at school: Behaviors, health and student well-being in 2018 HBSC survey in French-speaking Belgium

The "Behavior, well-being and health of students" survey is carried out every four years, since 1986, with pupils from 5th primary to the end of secondary in French-speaking schools in Belgium. This survey is the French-speaking Belgian side of the international HBSC study in which nearly 50 countries or regions participate, under the patronage of the WHO Regional Office for Europe. In French-speaking Belgium, this study is carried out by the Service of Information, Promotion, Health Education (SIPES1) of the School of Public Health at the Free University of Brussels (ULB). The data collected as part of this survey focus on adolescent health behaviors (diet, physical activity, smoking, etc.), their well-being (life satisfaction, stress related to school work, psychosomatic symptoms ...) and the factors associated with these indicators (socio-demographic, school, family characteristics, etc.). The repetition of the survey every four years has the advantage of allowing a follow-up of their evolutions in time. It thus makes it possible to provide information useful for health promotion actors targeting a public adolescents, and contribute to the implementation of health promotion policies and interventions in areas covered by this collection.

Multiple topics were discussed in the result section. Firstly, 3.9% of the respondents admitted having participated in cyberbullying one or two times and 0.3%, several times a week. 5th-6th primary were proportionally more likely to have participated in cyberbullying at least twice a month than students of secondary school. Boys (1.4%) were proportionately more likely to report being perpetrators of cyberbullying than girls. In the 2nd-3rd stage of secondary education, vocational education students (1.7%) were proportionally more engaged in cyberbullying than their peers from the general and technical transitional education (0.5%). The proportion of students who have been victims of cyber-bullying at least twice a month was higher among primary students than those in secondary school. Secondly, 62.5% of adolescents frequently communicated with their close friends via online communication: 39.0% “almost all the day "and 23.5%" several times a day. Students communicating most of the day with their friends relatives were higher among 1st degree students and the 2nd-3rd degree of secondary (43.0%) than among those years 5-6 (28.9%) and higher among girls (59.7%) than among boys (53.0%). Thirdly, two-thirds of adolescents disagreed that it is easier to talk about secrets or worries on internet than face-to-face, and half disagreed to say that it is easier to talk about your feelings on internet only in front of a person. Yet, still more than a quarter (28.7%) agreed that it is easier to talk about their feelings on the internet. The proportions of students with a preference for online social interactions increased from primary school to the first grade if secondary school but then decreased in the upper levels. Finally, in the 5th year of primary education, boys were proportionally more likely than girls to have a problematic use of social networks. This is ocntrary to adolescents whereas 8.1% had problematic use of social networks and it was more frequent among girls (9.6%) than among boys (6.6%).A third of the pupils said they had tried, without success, to spend less time on social networks, or have gone to social networks to escape negative feelings. Yet, the pupils of the 2nd-3rd degree of secondary claimed that they would like to spend more time on social media. (translated by Joanna Beeckmans)