Mathew Maria, Iswarya Santhanakrishnan, Paul Arun Vijay
Department of Community Medicine, Government Medical College and ESI Hospital, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India.
J Family Med Prim Care. 2021 Dec;10(12):4509-4513. doi: 10.4103/jfmpc.jfmpc_895_21. Epub 2021 Dec 27.
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.
Health education through interactive power point discussion and video was imparted to 200 girls of class 6 to 12 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.
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.
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.
儿童性虐待（CSA）在印度是一个严重且隐蔽的问题。尽管这是一个巨大的问题，但围绕CSA主题却存在一种沉默文化。赋予儿童自我保护和揭露虐待行为的能力是克服CSA这一隐蔽问题的唯一途径。因此，本研究旨在评估健康教育的效果。
通过互动式幻灯片讨论和视频，向哥印拜陀政府高中6至12年级的200名女生进行健康教育。使用自填式问卷收集基线数据。在基线评估一周后，分五场进行健康教育，每场40名学生。使用幻灯片和视频进行为期60分钟的互动课程来教育儿童。两个月后使用相同问卷收集随访数据。
最初只有23%的女孩知晓儿童性虐待，干预后显著提高到71.5%。同样，干预前只有19%的女孩知晓各类儿童性虐待，然而干预后大量女孩开始知晓。同意会向她们信任的人报告不良触摸直至那个人相信她们的儿童比例有显著提高（94.5%）。干预前只有31%的儿童知道遭受性虐待时该怎么做，干预后这一比例显著上升。干预后关于保护儿童免受性犯罪侵害法律的知识从49%显著提高到78%。几乎90%的儿童报告说他们知道儿童求助热线号码。
本研究证明，对女孩进行的健康教育提高了她们的知识水平，并使她们有能力报告此类事件并保护自己免受此类事件的侵害。
