Mathews Ben, Yang Chengwu, Lehman Erik B, Mincemoyer Claudia, Verdiglione Nicole, Levi Benjamin H
Australian Centre for Health Law Research, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD, Australia.
College of Medicine, Department of Public Health Sciences, Division of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, & Office for Scholarship in Learning and Education Research (OSLER), Penn State University, Hershey, PA, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2017 May 19;12(5):e0177777. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0177777. eCollection 2017.
Early childhood care and education providers (CCPs) work with over 7 million young children. These children are vulnerable to physical, sexual and emotional abuse, and neglect. However, CCPs make less than 1% of all reports of suspected child abuse and neglect that are made to child protective services. CCPs are therefore an untapped resource in the public health response to child maltreatment. However, their knowledge and attitudes about duties to report child maltreatment are poorly understood. Moreover, no rigorous research has tested whether their knowledge and attitudes about reporting child maltreatment can be improved. These gaps in knowledge are important because knowledge of the duty and positive attitudes towards it produce more effective reporting, and little evidence exists about how to enhance cognitive and affective attributes. Using the CONSORT approach, we report a single-blind test-retest randomized controlled trial evaluating iLook Out for Child Abuse, a customized online educational intervention for CCPs to increase knowledge and attitudes towards the reporting duty. 762 participants were randomized with results analyzed for 741 participants (372 in the intervention group; 369 in the control). Knowledge of the reporting duty increased in the intervention group from 13.54 to 16.19 out of 21 (2.65 increase, 95% CI: (2.37, 2.93); large effect size 0.95, p < 0.001); the control group remained stable, moving from 13.54 to 13.59 (0.05 increase, 95% CI: (-0.12, 0.22); negligible effect size 0.03, p = 0.684). Attitudes were enhanced on all 13 items for the intervention group, remaining stable in the control, with significant differences between groups on all items (p < 0.05). Gains were largely sustained at four month follow-up. Findings support education for CCPs and other professions. Future research should also explore effects of education on reporting behavior.
US National Institutes of Health NCT02225301.
幼儿保育与教育工作者（CCP）与超过700万幼儿打交道。这些儿童容易遭受身体、性和情感虐待以及忽视。然而，向儿童保护服务机构报告的所有疑似儿童虐待和忽视事件中，CCP的报告占比不到1%。因此，在应对儿童虐待的公共卫生工作中，CCP是尚未开发的资源。然而，人们对他们关于报告儿童虐待职责的知识和态度了解甚少。此外，尚无严谨研究检验过他们关于报告儿童虐待的知识和态度能否得到改善。这些知识空白很重要，因为对职责的了解以及积极态度会带来更有效的报告，而关于如何增强认知和情感属性的证据很少。我们采用CONSORT方法报告了一项单盲重测随机对照试验，评估“留意儿童虐待”，这是一项为CCP定制的在线教育干预措施，旨在增加他们对报告职责的知识和态度。762名参与者被随机分组，对741名参与者（干预组372名；对照组369名）的结果进行了分析。干预组对报告职责的知晓率从21分中的13.54分提高到16.19分（提高2.65分，95%置信区间：(2.37, 2.93)；大效应量0.95，p < 0.001）；对照组保持稳定，从13.54分提高到13.59分（提高0.05分，95%置信区间：(-0.12, 0.22)；可忽略效应量0.03，p = 0.684）。干预组的13项态度指标均有所增强，对照组保持稳定，两组在所有指标上均存在显著差异（p < 0.05）。四个月随访时，增益基本保持。研究结果支持对CCP及其他职业进行教育。未来研究还应探索教育对报告行为的影响。
美国国立卫生研究院NCT02225301。
