This study aimed to examine the prevalence of truancy and its associated factors among school going Malaysian adolescents. The Malaysia Global School-based Health Survey (GSHS) was conducted from February to April 2012 involving 28,933 students aged 12-17 years old. A two-stage cluster sampling was used to select the schools and students with an overall response rate of 88.6%. The data were obtained using the GSHS questionnaire. The prevalence of truancy was 30.8% and significantly higher among male than female (32.9% vs 28.7%). The factors associated with truancy were current smoker (aOR: 2.23; 95% CI: 2.03-2.46), current drug user (aOR: 2.23; 95% CI: 1.52-3.29), current alcohol use (aOR: 1.39; 95% CI: 1.24-1.56), having been bullied (aOR: 1.31; 95% CI: 1.22-1.42) and not currently live with both parents (aOR: 1.25; 95% CI: 1.16-1.35). High truancy among school going adolescents warrants a new effective strategy to control truancy in Malaysia.
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