The Role of Parental Motivation in Parent-Child Discussions: A Randomized Controlled Trial of Child Sexual Abuse Intervention

Introduction: Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) has long been an intervention target due to negative outcomes associated with this victimization. Given the significant role of parents, efforts to provide parents with tools to educate their young children about CSA and discuss it openly may be a promising avenue of intervention. However, parents may be reluctant to talk about CSA with their children due to lack of knowledge about CSA or beliefs that their child is not at risk. The current randomized controlled trial (RCT) examined whether viewing educational videos designed to promote parent-child discussion of CSA by increasing parents’ knowledge of CSA and motivation to talk about it with their children. We hypothesized that parents who viewed the CSA video intervention would report more parent-child discussion of CSA and that these effects would be mediated via increased knowledge of CSA and motivation for discussion CSA with child.

Methods: A national sample of parents (N = 409) recruited through Facebook and Craigslist participated in this on-line study of child health and safety. To be eligible, participants had to be at least 18 years old, be the parent or legal guardian of a child between 3-11 years of age, and live with that child at least 50% of the time. Eligible parents were randomly assigned to view videos on education about CSA (intervention) or nutrition (control) and participated in a (a) pre-test survey, (b) video viewing and post-test 1survey (one week after pre-test), and (c) post-test 2 survey (two months after post-test 1). At pretest and post-test 2, all parents completed questionnaires assessing CSA preventive behaviors (Wurtele et al. 2008), motivation to discuss CSA (Burgess & Wurtele, 1998), and knowledge of CSA (Collings, 1997).

Results: Serial multiple mediation model was conducted (Hayes, 2012) and although there was no significant direct effect (c’=.47 [-0.20, 1.15]) of the intervention on CSA discussion, there was a significant indirect effect (ab=.49 [.18, .87]). Specifically, intervention predicted parental motivation (b = .54, p < .001), suggesting that exposure to CSA videos increased parents’ motivation to discuss CSA with their children at posttest1. This increased motivation then led to increased parent-child discussion about CSA at posttest 2 (b=.91 [0.41, 1.40]).

Conclusions: Use of parent-focused videos targeting CSA are effective at increasing parents’ ability to feel confident and motivated to talk to their children about this topic. This increased motivation is fundamental to increasing parent-child discussions regarding CSA. Intervention providing knowledge about CSA without promoting motivation for protective actions (i.e., discussion) is less likely to be effective.