The effect of parent-child communication on self-protection skills at pre-schoolers: The body safety training interventions in Turkey

Abstract

Objective: Parents are key partners in preventing child sexual abuse (CSA). Body safety tanning (BST) aims to preventing CSA. The first aim is to examine parents knowledge of CSA and interventions of the BST. Secondly, to evaluate the effect of parents' BST interventions on giving the child self-protection skills.Method: Sample included 92 parents and their 3-to 6 year-old preschool children. In the first stage of the study, WIST (What If Situations Test) was applied to the preschoolers. Secondly, data were collected from the parents about the knowledge of CSA and BST interventions.Results: Parents' have high CSA knowledge (M = 7.33 SD = 1.31). The proportion of parents who have knowledge BST is limited (32.6%). However, despite this limited knowledge, the number of those who talk to the child is higher (82.6%). There was no difference between the WIST sub-scale score; appropriate recognition, inappropriate recognition, saying, telling skills and Personal Safety Questionnaire (p > 0.05). The scores of doing and reporting skills were found to be statistically significant high (p < 0.05).Conclusions: Parents have high CSA knowledge, but the impact of BST interventions to their children on gaining the ability to self-protection skills is limited.