Knowledge and Attitude on Child Abuse among Teachers in Selected Public Secondary Schools of a District of Nepal: A Cross-sectional Study

Abstract

Introduction: Child abuse is the most critical health issue worldwide and a violation of children’s human rights. Teachers have important roles in the prevention and detection of abuse. The school setting also plays a crucial role in identifying child maltreatment, but teachers lack support and knowledge to effectively fulfill their mandated reporting responsibilities. The study aimed to find out the status of knowledge and attitude regarding child abuse among school teachers.

Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was done in secondary schools to observe knowledge and attitude of school teachers towards child abuse after obtaining ethical approval from Institutional Review Committee. Convenience sampling technique was used. Data was collected using a structured self-developed and pretested questionnaire to observe status of knowledge and five-point Likert scale for attitude. Data was analyzed by using IBM SPSS Statistics version 16 using descriptive statistics.

Results: The study revealed 48% of teachers had good knowledge whereas 97% had a positive attitude towards identification and reporting of child abuse. The mean knowledge score was 55.8±17.3. More than 42% of teachers had suspected at least one situation of victimization during their careers but only 21% had actually reported these suspicions. Approximately 79% had no experience with reporting a child abuse case.

Conclusions: Less than half of the respondents had good knowledge whereas most of them had a positive attitude regarding reporting of child abuse. The majority of the respondents had inadequate knowledge on physical abuse and were unaware of the necessity of reporting abuse cases. Therefore, in-service training might be needed to further increase the knowledge status.