Effectiveness of Health Awareness Program on Knowledge Regarding Safe and Unsafe Touch among Primary Section Students in Sanatan Dharm Intercollege Bannu Dehradun, Uttarakhand

: Introduction: In today’s world, parents need to talk to their children about what is good and bad also they should talk about sexual development and sexual identity at a very young age. Children are very curious about their body parts for which parents should give them a proper guidance and teach them that no one has permission to touch their private body parts. Safe touch and Unsafe touch are two important concepts that everyone should be aware of. Safe touch is any kind of physical contact that makes someone feel safe and comfortable. This can include hugs, high-fives, and pats on the back. On the other hand, Unsafe touch is any kind of physical contact that makes someone feel uncomfortable or scared. This can include hitting, pushing, or grabbing someone without their permission. The purpose of this paper was to determine level of knowledge regarding safe and unsafe touch in primary section students from a systematic review of the literature. Objective: To Assess the pre and post-test level of knowledge regarding safe and unsafe touch among primary section students Dehradun, Uttarakhand. To Evaluate the effectiveness of the awareness program among primary section students, Dehradun, Uttarakhand. To find out the association between pretest level of knowledge regarding safe and unsafe touch among primary section students with their selected demographic variables. Method: A quantitative approach with a one group pre-test post-test design was used for the study. 100 participants who fulfilled the inclusion criteria were selected by non-probability purposive sampling technique at Sanatan Dharm Intercollege Bannu, Dehradun, Uttarakhand. The data was collected by socio-demographic data and self-structured knowledge questionnaire on Safe and Unsafe touch. The obtained data was analyzed in terms of objectives using various tools, chi-square test and Karl Pearson’s correlation method. Results: Out of 100 primary section students, the level of knowledge in pre-test is poor in 3%, average in 41% children, good in 50% and excellent in 6% meanwhile in post-test 12% had good, 88% had excellent knowledge. Karl Pearson’s coefficient was used to determine the reliability of the study which was r=0.93, which indicate perfect positive relationship. Specific demographic variables were associated with higher score regarding safe and unsafe touch, including age of students under 9-11 years, more male population, second order of birth, nuclear type of family, children in 5th standard, participants belong to Hindu religion, mothers’ qualification as secondary education, father qualification as primary education and equal previous knowledge. Conclusion: The result of the study showed that there is a significant difference between pretest and post-test level of knowledge regarding safe and unsafe touch. A socio-demographic variable showed significant association with pre-test and post-test level of knowledge. The result in our study supports previous studies indicated that there will be a significant difference between level of knowledge before and after giving health awareness program regarding safe and unsafe touch in primary section students of Sanatan Dharm Intercollege Bannu, Dehradun, Uttarakhand.