Research Article | Open Access
The Effect of Parent-Child Communication on Self-Protection Skills at Pre-schoolers: The Body Safety Training Interventions in Turkey
Gulseren Citak Tunc Elif Yalcintas Sezgin Leyla Ulus
Pages: 85-95
Abstract
Objective: Parents are key partners in preventing child sexual abuse (CSA). Body
safety tarining (BST) aims to preventing CSA. The first aim is to examine parents
knowledge of CSA and interventions of the BST. Secondly, to ev aluate 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.
Keywords
Child Sexual Abuse, Parent, Pre-schoolers, Body Safety Training, Self-protection.