@article{article_1754316, title={Efficacy of a Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Program for Turkish Second-Grade Primary School Children}, journal={Hacettepe Üniversitesi Eğitim Fakültesi Dergisi}, volume={41}, pages={236–249}, year={2026}, DOI={10.16986/hunefd.1754316}, author={Yılmaz Irmak, Türkan and Kızıltepe, Rukiye and Eslek Çetin, Duygu and Güngör Culha, Duygu and Sancaklı, Cerem and Koçak, Özge and Kaya, Özge and Manap Koçak, Dilan and Yörük Ülker, Gülsüm}, keywords={Child sexual abuse, prevention, school-based program, primary school}, abstract={School-based prevention programs may play a crucial role in protecting children against child sexual abuse. However, only a few prevention programs have been implemented for primary school children in Türkiye so far. Ultimately, we aimed to develop a child sexual abuse prevention program and explore its efficacy using a pretest-posttest comparison group design. We carried out the study with 104 second graders aged 6-8 years (Mage = 6.99, SD = 0.49). Using a quasi-experimental design with comparison group, children’s classrooms were randomly assigned to either the intervention group (n = 66) or the wait-list comparison group (n = 38). All the children were recruited to a pretest and a posttest using the Child Sexual Abuse Knowledge Form, the Self-Protection Skill Form, and the Good Touch-Bad Touch Test. The students in the intervention group participated in the 4-hour child sexual abuse prevention program. To investigate effectiveness of the program on children’s knowledge levels, we used the three-state latent Markov model with (SABIC = 2067.7511, AIC = 2091.4234) and without (SABIC = 2075.4711, AIC = 2095.0264) intervention and wait-list comparison groups as a covariate variable. This result implied that the program was effective for the children in the intervention group since the transition probabilities between the intervention and wait-list comparison groups were significantly different. The findings revealed that the children in the intervention group demonstrated significant improvements in knowledge. Their self-protection skills (number of responses, effective strategies, diversity of response) also showed significant improvements. (respectively (F(1, 101)= 4.280, p <.05, η2= .04, F(1, 101)= 4.539, p <.05, η2= .04, F(1, 101)= 10.029, p <.05, η2= .09). Hence, we can confidently highlight the importance of the prevention program for second graders, and the child sexual abuse prevention program can be utilized as a primary prevention program in Turkish primary schools.}, number={1}, publisher={Hacettepe Üniversitesi}