“Effectiveness of Structured Teaching Programme on Child Neglect and Abuse Among Mothers of Under Five Children in a Selected Hospitals at Kollam District.”

Introduction: Child neglect and abuse are major public health and social problems that affect the physical, emotional, and psychological development of children. According to the World Health Organization, child abuse includes physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, as well as neglect and exploitation that may harm a child’s health, development, or dignity. Children under the age of five are particularly vulnerable because they depend entirely on caregivers, especially mothers, for protection, care, and emotional support.
Methods: A quantitative study was conducted to assess the effect of structured teaching program on level of knowledge regarding child neglect and abuse among mothers of under-five children in a selected hospital at Kollam district .The objective of study were to assess the level of knowledge regarding child neglect and abuse among mothers of under five children, to evaluate the effect of structured teaching program on knowledge regarding child neglect and abuse among mothers of under five children, to find out the association between the pre-test knowledge on child neglect and abuse among mothers of under five children with selected socio demographic variable. Purposive sampling technique was used to select 30 mothers of under five children for the study. The tools used were demographic profile and structured knowledge questionnaire.
Result and discussion: The findings of the study shows that the mean pre-test score is 12.033 and mean post test score is 14.87 the paired t test value for the pre-test and post-test knowledge scores is 5.22 which is greater than the table value at 0.01 level of significance and there is significant difference in the mean post-test knowledge score, thus there was a significant improvement in the knowledge regarding child neglect and abuse among mothers of under five children and statistically significant at 0.001 level.
Conclusion: Hence the study concluded that structured teaching programme on child abuse and neglect was effective in improving the knowledge of mothers of under five children.

Effectiveness, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Mothers, Under-five children.

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