The effectiveness of smart robot psychological intervention program on good sexual care for elementary school children

Introduction: Child sexual abuse is a serious issue with serious consequence. Self-care education programs can improve children's awareness, knowledge, and skills to defend themselves against sexual abuse Aim: The purpose of this study was to effectiveness of the program of psychological intervention with smart robot on good sexual care of primary school children. Method: The study was carried out as a quasi-experimental study with pretest and posttest design and a control group. The sample group consisted of 80 students (8-12 years old) in 2019 year, who were selected through cluster random sampling and randomly allocated to control groups (20 girls and 20 boys) and experiment groups (20 girls and 20 boys). The experiment groups attended a psychological intervention program with a robot in 10 sessions. The control group received no intervention. The tool used in the study was an endogenized questionnaire by Lezli Tuti (1995) to measure knowledge and awareness of children about sexual abuse. The questionnaire was filled out for the participants in pretest, posttest, and follow-up stages. The collected data was analyzed using repeated measures ANCOVA in SPSS (v.25). Results: The results showed that psychological intervention with a smart robot had a positive effect on good sexual care of children (P <0.01). In addition, the sexual care was effective in increasing knowledge of the children to tell a good touch (P<0.01). Conclusion: Psychological intervention using a robot was an effective way to improve sexual care in children. Therefore, this method can be used by consultant, psychologists, and authorities as a therapeutic method.