Raising the Awareness of Students in a Child Development Department regarding the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse

"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

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.