Sexual Abuse Prevention Education for Preschool-Aged Children: Parents’ Attitudes, Knowledge and Practices in Beijing, China

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to investigate Chinese parents’ attitudes, knowledge, and practices with their preschool-aged children on sexual abuse prevention education, and to explore the associated factors of parental educative practices on child sexual abuse (CSA) prevention. Four hundred and forty parents of young children from 16 classes in 3 preschools in Beijing completed the questionnaire anonymously and voluntarily (response rate = 80%). Less than one third of parents believed that children most often were sexually abused by familiar persons, and less than 30% of parents believed that if a child has been sexually abused, there will usually be no obvious physical evidence. Parents were reluctant to discuss CSA protective skills with their young children. Less than half of the parents had told their children that if sexual abuse happens, parents or other trusted adults should be told. The multivariate linear regression equation showed that both parents’ knowledge (B = 0.11, SE B = 0.05, p = 0 .03) and attitudes (B = 0.27, SE B = 0.10, p = .01) were significant factors for parents’ communication about CSA prevention with their children. Findings from this study suggest that it is urgent to implement the sexual abuse prevention education with Chinese parents of preschoolers. Applications and limitations of these findings are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Preschoolers
• child sexual abuse
• parents
• prevention
• education

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Dr. Jingqi Chen for her help in using the parents’ assessment questionnaire and thank the parents who participated in this study.

Disclosure of interest

Authors declare that they have no conflicts to report.

Ethical standards and informed consent

All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation [institutional and national] and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000. Informed consent was obtained from all parents for being included in the study.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Social Science Foundation of China [BLA170223].

Notes on contributors

Wenjing Zhang

Wenjing Zhang, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor at Beijing Academy of Educational Sciences in Beijing and Principal Investigator of the Program on Sexual Health Education for Children, Beijing, China.

Ping Ren

Ping Ren, Ph.D., is Associate Professor at Collaborative Innovation Center of Assessment toward Basic Education Quality, Beijing Normal University, Beijing and Director of Research Center on bullying, Beijing, China.

Guijin Yin

Guijin Yin, Master., is Associate Professor at Beijing Academy of Educational Sciences in Beijing and Director of Research Center on Secondary Education, Beijing, China.

Haiyan Li

Haiyan Li, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor at Beijing Academy of Educational Sciences in Beijing and Key Researcher of the Program on Sexual Health Education for Children, Beijing, China.

Yichen Jin

Yichen Jin, Ph.D., is Research Fellow at Institute of Child and Adolescent Health, School of Public Health, Peking University, Beijing and Key Researcher of the Program on Sexual Health Education for Children, Beijing, China.