The Effect of Self-Care Training on Cognitive Distortions in Volunteer Instructors of Sexual Education to Children

Background: Unfamiliarity with the process of self-care training and sexual education can make sexual education volunteer instructors stressful and create incorrect attitudes for them. Therefore, the objective of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of self-care training on cognitive distortions in volunteer instructors of sexual education to children. Methods: This quasi-experimental study was conducted using a pretest-posttest and control group design. The statistical population included all individuals who volunteered to take part in the courses of instructor training on sexual self-care skills and sexual education. These courses were held by the Civil Society Forum for Child Rights in 2018. Among the volunteers, 30 people were selected by purposive sampling and were randomly replaced into the interventional (15 individuals) and control (15 individuals) groups. The questionnaire of cognitive distortions was used to collect the required information and the collected data were analyzed via ANCONA by SPSS23. Results: The results showed that self-care training was effective on cognitive distortions of volunteer instructors of sexual education to children (P < 0.001). In other words, this training decreased cognitive distortions of the volunteers. The effect of this training on cognitive distortion was 78%. Conclusion: According to the Results, self-care training can decrease cognitive distortions of the volunteers by employing concepts such as training technique of stopping anxieties, principles of positive and optimistic thoughts, nurturing healthy personality, and raising self-awareness. As a result, they can show higher efficiency in training sexual safety to children.