Awareness about Child Abuse among Care Givers and Teachers in Selected Rural Schools at Mangalore

Abstract: children's are the gift of god; as indian society concerned that children depict the innocence of god. Around 27 million children are born in a year. Out of which two million of them do not live up to the age of five in india1. Child abuse is a terrible thing and most people are not aware about the child abuse. According to the world health organization (who), one in every four girls and one in every seven boys in the world are sexually abused. Objectives of the study : to assess the level of awareness about child abuse among care givers and teachers in selected rural schools at Mangalore. To find the association between awareness about child abuse with selected demographic variables. Methods : a descriptive survey design was adapted for this study. Forty four teachers and forty four caregivers were selected by means of purposive sampling method. Demographic Performa and awareness questionnaire were used to collect the data from the subjects. The participants were asked to fill the demographic Performa and then proceed to awareness questionnaire. Results : data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The study findings revealed that the out of forty four caregivers 2.3% (n=1) had poor awareness, 61.4% (n=27) had average awareness and 36.4% (n=16) had good awareness about child abuse. Out of forty four teachers 59% (n=26) had average awareness and 41% (n= 18) had good awareness and none of them had poor awareness about child abuse. Conclusion : forty four teachers and forty four caregivers had been assessed for their level of awareness about child abuse of these most of them had average [teachers = 26 (59.1%), caregivers = 27 (61.4%)] and good awareness [teachers = 18 (40.9%), caregivers = 16(36.4%)]. There was an association between awareness (caregivers) and education status at 5% level of significance