Effectiveness of Adolescent Interactive Education Program on Knowledge About Child Sexual Abuse and Self-Protection Among Early Adolescent Girls from Selected Urban School of Bengaluru, Karnataka

Abstract

In India, child sexual abuse is a widespread, serious, and long-growing problem. Children are generally abused by the people known to them and less likely by strangers. A majority of people remain numb about the issues because of fear, denial from the community and social stigma and also result in less reported cases among the victims. Our aim was to assess early adolescent girl’s knowledge on child sexual abuse and self-protection and assess the effectiveness of interactive education programs. For the study, we adopted one group of pre-test and post-test designs. A total of 30 early adolescent girls from a selected school participated. The intervention consisted of interactive education program using role-play, discussion, storytelling, and audiovisual aids. Knowledge about CSA and self-protection was assessed pre- and post-intervention. There were significant changes in the knowledge score of pre-test from post-test (t = -7.632, P < 0.001) following interactive sessions. Also, the mean for self-protection was significantly lower than the post-test mean. After the intervention, there were significant changes in the knowledge score of pre-test from post-test (t = -5.722, P < 0.001). The results also show that the education of parents and monthly family income had significant association with the pre-intervention knowledge level. Interactive education program effectively increases the knowledge level on CSA and self-protection.