School of Global Public Health, New York University, New York, New York, United States of America.
Mission Kids Child Advocacy Center, East Norriton, Pennsylvania, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2024 May 16;19(5):e0302982. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0302982. eCollection 2024.
Parents are an obvious, but underutilized player in the prevention of child sexual abuse (CSA). A handful of universal parent-focused prevention programs have emerged, however, the evidence for these programs is mixed and the programs suffer ubiquitously from barriers to implementation (e.g., poor engagement, low participation) thereby limiting public health impact. To combat these barriers and improve evidence, researchers previously developed and tested a selective parent-focused CSA prevention program. While promising, the selective approach still leaves a gap in the prevention landscape-parents from the universal audience. However, there appear to be no standardized methods to inform this type of adaptation-interventions designed as universal or selective have primarily been delivered as such. This study sought to adapt the selective curriculum for a universal audience and examined the acceptability and feasibility of the program for evaluation in a future trial. Using mixed methods, N = 31 parents (i.e., primary caregiver for a child under 13) completed pre- and post-workshop surveys followed by a brief individual interview conducted via Zoom. Interviews, coded using content analysis methods, focused on three themes: parents as agents of prevention (e.g., prior action, confidence), curriculum (e.g., content, design), and engagement (e.g., future marketing and promotion). Overall participants' mean score on CSA-related awareness and intention to use protective behavioral strategies increased. The participants found the curriculum highly acceptable noting strengths in the content and design. All told, the results of this pilot study suggest the acceptability and feasibility of examining the efficacy of the universal parent-focused curriculum in a larger trial. Procedural challenges, such as bots in recruitment, identify areas of caution in design of the larger trial and a roadmap for others seeking to adapt selective programs for universal audiences.
父母是预防儿童性虐待(CSA)的一个明显但利用不足的因素。已经出现了少数以父母为中心的通用预防计划,然而,这些计划的证据参差不齐,而且这些计划普遍存在实施障碍(例如,参与度低、参与度低),从而限制了公共卫生的影响。为了克服这些障碍并提高证据水平,研究人员之前开发并测试了一种选择性的以父母为中心的 CSA 预防计划。虽然有希望,但这种选择性方法仍然在预防领域留下了一个空白——即来自通用受众的父母。然而,似乎没有标准化的方法来告知这种类型的适应性——作为通用或选择性设计的干预措施主要是这样提供的。本研究旨在为通用受众改编选择性课程,并研究该课程在未来试验中的可接受性和可行性。使用混合方法,N=31 名父母(即 13 岁以下儿童的主要照顾者)完成了预调查和后调查,并通过 Zoom 进行了简短的个人访谈。访谈使用内容分析方法进行编码,重点关注三个主题:父母作为预防的代理人(例如,先前的行动、信心)、课程(例如,内容、设计)和参与度(例如,未来的营销和推广)。总体而言,参与者在 CSA 相关意识和使用保护性行为策略的意愿方面的平均得分有所提高。参与者认为课程非常受欢迎,指出内容和设计方面的优势。总而言之,这项试点研究的结果表明,在更大的试验中检验通用的以父母为中心的课程的疗效是可行的。程序上的挑战,如招募中的机器人,在更大试验的设计中确定了需要谨慎的领域,并为其他寻求为通用受众改编选择性计划的人提供了路线图。