A Descriptive Correlational study to assess the Knowledge and Attitude of Mothers regarding Prevention of child sexual abuse (CSA) in selected urban community in New Delhi.

Abstract

Introduction: Child sexual abuse (CSA) is a universal problem with grave life-long outcomes. Mothers are an important person in children life Objectives: The study was aimed to assess the knowledge and attitude of mothers regarding Prevention of child sexual abuse, to correlate knowledge and attitude of mothers, to find out the association of knowledge and attitude with selected demographic variables of mothers and to develop guidelines for mothers regarding prevention of child sexual abuse.

Methods: It was a Descriptive correlational research. Structured knowledge questionnaire and attitude scale were used. Tool 1, had two parts, Part A: Socio-demographic variables. Part B: Structured Knowledge Questionnaire consisted of 30 knowledge items. Tool 2: Attitude scale consisted 30 items on five-point Likert scale. 200 mothers of children 0-12 yrs of age were selected by convenient sampling technique. The data was analyzed by descriptive and inferential statistics.

Results:The results showed that approximately 52% of mothers had good knowledge scores, 31% had average and 17% had poor knowledge scores regarding prevention of child sexual abuse. The majority (59.5%) of mothers had undecided attitude, 40.5% had favorable attitude and none of them exhibited unfavorable attitude towards prevention of child sexual abuse. This study finding revealed that there was a positive strong correlation between knowledge and attitude towards prevention of child sexual abuse. This study shows that there was a significant association of knowledge and attitude scores with age, educational qualification and occupation of mothers. On the basis of results the guidelines were prepared, validated with the experts and disseminated to the mothers of the selected urban community.

Conclusion: The study concluded that even after Government and public welfare organizations efforts, only a half percentage (52%) of mothers exhibited good knowledge about prevention of child sexual abuse. So the study findings revealed that there is a need to acknowledge the problem nationwide. Keep this need in mind the researcher developed and disseminated the guideline for mothers on prevention of child sexual abuse.

Key Words

Knowledge, Attitude, Child Sexual Abuse, Guidelines