“Don’t Touch My Body!” Child Sexual Abuse Training Program for Future Pre-School Educators: A Single-Blind, Pre-Test/Post-Test, Randomized Controlled Trial

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the “Don’t Touch My Body” Training Program (DTMB-TP) and raise awareness of child sexual abuse (CSA) among future pre-school teachers enrolled in a Turkish university. The study design was quasi-experimental and employed two groups (intervention and control) with pre-test/post-test. Convenience sampling method was used. The study sample included participants ( n = 218) enrolled in an academic degree program to become pre-school teachers. Data were collected using a descriptive information form and the “DTMB” awareness form. The data collection forms were administered to the study and control groups at baseline (pre-test) and 4 weeks after the intervention. The intervention applied to the experimental group was conducted face-to-face in one class hour (40 minutes) under the leadership of a nurse. There was a statistically significant increase in the knowledge of the children’s private body parts, good/bad touch, reactions to strangers, and the family security password in the intervention group in the post-test ( p < .05). In the post-test, no increase was observed in the control group’s CSA knowledge level score ( p > .05). The DTMB-TP effectively increased the awareness of preventing sexual abuse in participants. This study concluded that education effectively raised awareness to prevent CSA and provided basic data for larger-scale studies.

Awareness on good and bad touch among school children in north Gujarat, India

“…The DTMB-TP successfully raised participants' awareness of sexual abuse prevention. This study came to the conclusion that education successfully increased awareness to prevent CSA and supplied the foundational information for more extensive studies [ 16 ].…”