Maternal Attitude and Practices Regarding Prevention of Child’s Sexual Harassment: Interventional Study

Abstract

Background: Sexual harassment is a form of sexual violence that can affect any child regardless of sex, race, age, or social class. Children may be subjected to sexual harassment everywhere, at home, at school, or in their community.

Aim of the study: This study aimed to evaluate the effect of intervention program on mother’s practices regarding child’s sexual harassment and their attitudes regarding sexual harassment prevention education.

Subjects and Methods:

Research Design: A quasi experimental design was utilized in this study.

Setting: The study was conducted in pediatric hospital, Zagazig university hospitals at cardiopulmonary department, nutrition department and dialysis department.

Subjects: The study was conducted on sample of 93 mothers who attended the previous setting and had a child aged 6-12 years and agreed to participate in the study.

Tools of data collection: three tools were used for collection of data; the first tool was a structed interview Questionnaire for mothers’ characteristics and their children. The second tool was reported practice checklist to assess the mothers’ reported practices regarding child sexual harassment prevention. The third tool was mothers’ attitudes scale

Results: The studied mothers mean age was 34.78 ± 5.52 years. 51.6% of studied mothers had three children and 38.7% of mother’s children aged from 6-8< years with a mean age 9.04± 2.02 years. 50.5% of studied mothers and 48.4% of fathers had university education. 43.0% of the studied mothers had satisfactory level of total practices regarding sexual harassment before the intervention compared to 87.1% after intervention. 75.3% of the studied mothers had positive attitudes regarding sexual harassment prevention education pre-intervention compared to 94.6% of them had positive attitudes post intervention. 

Conclusion: It can be concluded that the mother’s practices regarding sexual harassment prevention and their attitude regarding sexual harassment prevention education had been improved significantly after intervention.

Recommendations: Encourage all organizations serving children to incorporate trainings about child sexual harassment and its prevention into ongoing, regular in-service education for all staff who supervise younger children in these settings.