Knowledge and attitude of public primary school teachers towards child abuse reporting practices in Nigeria
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.38140/ijspsy.v4i1.1098Keywords:
Attitudes, Child abuse reporting practices, Knowledge, Public primary school teachersAbstract
This study investigated public primary school teachers' level of knowledge and attitudinal disposition towards child abuse reporting practices in Alimosho Local Government Area of Lagos State, Nigeria. A cross-sectional survey research design was used in the study. Three hundred and fourteen teachers were selected at public primary schools in Alimosho, Local Government of Lagos State, Nigeria. The study employed a multi-stage sampling technique; six public primary schools were selected together, and teachers in primary one (P1) to Primary six (P6) constituted the sample for the study. Data collected was analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics via Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 22.0. The results showed that the majority of the public primary school teachers in the study area have adequate knowledge about child abuse as all of them (100%) have heard about child abuse; the proportion of the teachers with a high level of knowledge about child abuse reporting was 95.9%; more of the teachers had moderately high (59.7%) attitudinal disposition towards child abuse reporting; there is no significant relationship between the level of knowledge of teachers and child abuse reporting practices (r = 0.014; p-value = 0.806); there is a significant relationship between the attitude of teachers and child abuse reporting practices (r = -0.179 at p-value of 0.002); and the relationship between teachers’ attitude to child abuse and child abuse reporting practices is indirect (at r = -0.179). It was concluded in the study that while some teachers have reported child abuse to child protection services, a large number of them claimed that they would not report it even if they noticed any child being abused.
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