Abuse knowledge levels of children aged 7-12 Çorum province example

As a global problem, sexual abuse has been defined by Ruth and Henry Kembe (1978) as "the use of dependent and developmentally immature children and adolescents in sexual activities that they do not consciously approve of, cannot fully perceive, or that go against social taboos regarding family roles". In the studies conducted, it is seen that the studies investigating the sexual abuse knowledge levels of children in the 7-12 age group are insufficient. Considering that one of the biggest obstacles to efforts to prevent child sexual abuse is the lack of knowledge of children on this issue, it is important to determine what children know about sexual abuse. With this study, it was aimed to determine the sexual abuse knowledge level of children in the 7-12 age group, to reveal the correct misconceptions about sexual abuse. This descriptive and cross-sectional study was conducted with 281 children aged 7-12 years who were under treatment in the pediatric inpatient services of Çorum Hitit University Erol Olçok Training and Research Hospital between August 2021 and November 2022. Data were collected through the "child and family descriptive questionnaire" and the "Child Abuse Information Scale" (CIBA). The scale, which consists of two sub-dimensions, inappropriate touching (UOD) and appropriate touching (UD), has thirty-three items. The lowest score that can be obtained from the CIBS is 0, and the highest score is 33. Statistical analysis was done with SPSS package program, data obtained from child and family descriptive questionnaire were reported as percentage (%), data obtained from MDCI were reported as mean±standard deviation. Mann Whitney U test for comparison of data between two independent groups, Kruskal-Wallis test was used for more than two independent groups. Statistical significance was accepted as p<0.05. 76.5% of the children are between the ages of 10-12, 52.5% are girls, 83.5% are in the nuclear family structure and 81.2% are only attending kindergarten. It was determined that the children's MDQ-Total Mean Scores were 20.51±4.60, the UOD-Sub-Dimensional Mean Mean was 15.26±3.69, and the UD-Sub-Dimension Mean was 5.24±1.92, which was above the average. It was determined that the age, gender, number of siblings, number of children in the family, family structure, going to kindergarten/nursery, the age and education of the mothers and the age of the fathers did not affect the level of sexual abuse knowledge (p>0.05). It was determined that there was a significant difference (p<0.05) between the scale UD-Sub-Dimension Mean Scores according to the working status of the mothers of the children and the LOD-Sub-Dimension Mean Scores according to the education and employment status of the fathers and the income level of the family. As a result, although the knowledge level of the children participating in the study about sexual abuse is above the general average, considering the devastating effect of sexual abuse affecting all aspects of life, children's knowledge of abuse is not at the desired level. Therefore, it is recommended to focus on education programs that increase children's knowledge of abuse.