Effectiveness of Structured Teaching Programme on Knowledge Regarding Prevention of Child Abuse among Parents of School-Going Children in India: A Pre-Experimental Study

Child abuse is a serious public health issue that affects the physical, emotional, and psychological well-being of children across the world. It includes physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, and neglect, all of which can have long-term harmful effects on a child’s growth and development. Parents play an important role in protecting children and identifying early warning signs of abuse. However, many parents do not have enough knowledge about child abuse prevention.[1] The present study was conducted to assess the effectiveness of a structured teaching programme on knowledge regarding the prevention of child abuse among parents of school-going children. A quantitative pre-experimental one-group pretest–post-test research design was used for the study. The research was conducted among 60 parents selected through simple random sampling from a selected school in Hyderabad. A structured questionnaire was used to assess knowledge before and after the intervention. The teaching programme included information regarding types, causes, risk factors, preventive measures, and legal aspects of child abuse. The findings showed a significant improvement in the knowledge scores after the teaching programme. In the pretest, most parents had below-average knowledge, whereas in the post-test, the majority had above-average knowledge. The paired t-test showed a statistically significant difference between pretest and post-test scores. The study concluded that structured teaching programmes are effective in improving parental knowledge regarding the prevention of child abuse and can be useful in paediatric nursing practice.[2]