Assessment of Knowledge Regarding Child Abuse and its Prevention among Mothers of Selected Rural Community, West Bengal

A descriptive study to assess knowledge regarding child abuse and its prevention among mothers in selected rural community, West Bengal, with one of objectives to find out the association between knowledge score with selected demographic variables among mothers. For this study non-experimental descriptive research approach and descriptive survey design were adapted. The study was conducted at Bhasa, South 24 PGS form 19th May 2017 to 30th July 2017. The data was collected from 100 mothers who had child below 14 years of age by purposive sampling technique with administering semi structured interview schedule on demographic data and structured knowledge interview schedule on child abuse and its prevention. Reliability of the tool was established by Cronbachs alpha method and found 0.78. Overall findings on knowledge score of mothers showed that 4 %, 22 %, 44 %, 30 % mothers had scored excellent, good, average, poor knowledge score respectively. Majority of mothers in the area of physical abuse (43 %), psychological abuse (38 %), sexual abuse (29 %) and neglect (56 %) had poor knowledge score. Majority of mothers in the area of definition and description (44 %), and prevention (46 %) scored average. There were significant association found between knowledge score with age (x2=4.6*, p