Awareness of child sexual abuse prevention education among parents of Grade 3 elementary school pupils in Fuxin City, China

Several recent studies on child sexual abuse (CSA) in Chinese society have shown that the problem is not uncommon, and is associated with poor mental health and health-related risk behaviors of abused youth. It is very important to understand and improve public awareness of CSA prevention, especially for the parents. However, there are few published reports on the problem of parents' awareness. To fill this gap, knowledge, attitudes and practice of CSA prevention education were explored in 385 parents of Grade 3 pupils from four schools in Fuxin City of Liaoning Province in the northeast part of China by self-administered anonymous questionnaires. Among this sample, more than 80% of parents approved of school CSA prevention education. However, at the same time, 47.3% of parents expressed some concern that this education may induce the children to learn too much about 'sex'. Overall, about 60% of parents had told their children that their 'private parts' should not be touched by others and discussed strategies of 'Say "No!", Leave and Tell' in dealing with CSA situations or the situations that may lead to CSA. Only 4.2% of parents had provided books or other material about CSA prevention for their children. The parents' CSA prevention knowledge was inadequate. The findings from this research will be useful in developing CSA prevention education programs in schools and communities, designed to improve parents' knowledge and practice of CSA prevention.