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Educating early childhood care and education providers to improve knowledge and attitudes about reporting child
Ben Mathews1, Chengwu Yang2, Erik B Lehman3
1Australian Centre for Health Law Research, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD, Australia.
Insights
Early childhood care providers can improve their knowledge and attitudes regarding child abuse reporting through online education. This intervention significantly increased reporting duty knowledge and positive attitudes, with sustained effects.
Area of Science:
- Child welfare
- Public health
- Pediatrics
Background:
- Early childhood care providers (CCPs) are crucial for child protection but underreport abuse.
- Understanding CCPs' knowledge and attitudes toward reporting duties is vital for child maltreatment prevention.
- No prior research rigorously tested interventions to improve CCPs' reporting knowledge and attitudes.
Purpose of the Study:
- To evaluate the effectiveness of an online educational intervention, iLook Out for Child Abuse, in enhancing CCPs' knowledge and attitudes regarding child maltreatment reporting duties.
- To address the gap in understanding how to improve cognitive and affective attributes related to mandatory reporting.
Main Methods:
- A single-blind, test-retest randomized controlled trial (RCT) using the CONSORT approach.
- 762 early childhood care providers were randomized into an intervention group (online education) or a control group.
- Knowledge and attitudes were assessed at baseline and follow-up, with a 4-month follow-up to assess sustained effects.
Main Results:
- The intervention group showed a significant increase in knowledge of the reporting duty (2.65 increase, p < 0.001) with a large effect size (0.95).
- Attitudes towards reporting duties were significantly enhanced across all 13 assessed items in the intervention group compared to the control group (p < 0.05).
- Knowledge and attitude improvements were largely sustained at the four-month follow-up.
Conclusions:
- The iLook Out for Child Abuse online intervention effectively improves knowledge and attitudes related to child abuse reporting duties among CCPs.
- Findings support the integration of educational interventions for CCPs and potentially other professions to enhance child maltreatment reporting.
- Further research should investigate the impact of such education on actual reporting behaviors.
Abstract:
Early childhood care and education providers (CCPs) work with over 7 million young children. These children are vulnerable to physical, sexual and emotional abuse, and neglect. However, CCPs make less than 1% of all reports of suspected child abuse and neglect that are made to child protective services. CCPs are therefore an untapped resource in the public health response to child maltreatment. However, their knowledge and attitudes about duties to report child maltreatment are poorly understood. Moreover, no rigorous research has tested whether their knowledge and attitudes about reporting child maltreatment can be improved. These gaps in knowledge are important because knowledge of the duty and positive attitudes towards it produce more effective reporting, and little evidence exists about how to enhance cognitive and affective attributes. Using the CONSORT approach, we report a single-blind test-retest randomized controlled trial evaluating iLook Out for Child Abuse, a customized online educational intervention for CCPs to increase knowledge and attitudes towards the reporting duty. 762 participants were randomized with results analyzed for 741 participants (372 in the intervention group; 369 in the control). Knowledge of the reporting duty increased in the intervention group from 13.54 to 16.19 out of 21 (2.65 increase, 95% CI: (2.37, 2.93); large effect size 0.95, p < 0.001); the control group remained stable, moving from 13.54 to 13.59 (0.05 increase, 95% CI: (-0.12, 0.22); negligible effect size 0.03, p = 0.684). Attitudes were enhanced on all 13 items for the intervention group, remaining stable in the control, with significant differences between groups on all items (p < 0.05). Gains were largely sustained at four month follow-up. Findings support education for CCPs and other professions. Future research should also explore effects of education on reporting behavior.
Trial Registration:
US National Institutes of Health NCT02225301.
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