Effectiveness of health education on awareness of child sex abuse among school children

INTRODUCTION: Child sexual abuse (CSA) is a serious and hidden problem in India. Despite being such a huge problem a culture of silence surrounds the subject of CSA. Empowering children to protect themselves and disclose the abuse is the only way to overcome the hidden problem of CSA. Hence the present study was designed to evaluate the effectiveness of health education. METHODOLOGY: Health education through interactive power point discussion and video was imparted to 200 girls of class 6(th) to 12(th) in Government higher secondary school, Coimbatore. Baseline data was collected using self-administered questionnaire. A week after the base line assessment, health education was delivered in five sessions with forty students per session. Interactive session lasting for 60 minutes using power point and videos were used to educate children. Follow-up data was collected after two months using the same questionnaire. RESULTS: Initially only 23% of girls were aware about child sex abuse, and then, after intervention witnessed significant improvement to 71.5%. Similarly only 19% of girls were aware of various types of child sex abuse prior to intervention, however significant number of girls became aware post intervention. There was significant improvement in proportion of children (94.5%) who agreed that they will report bad touch to someone they trust until that person believes them. Pre-intervention only 31% of children knew as to what to do if sexually abused, this percentage rose significantly after the intervention. There was a significant improvement in knowledge from 49% to 78% post intervention regarding laws to protect children from sexual offences. Almost 90% of children reported that they knew about the child help line number. CONCLUSION: In this study has proven that health education imparted to girls has improved their knowledge and empowered them to report the events and protect themselves from such incidents