Background of the study: Child sexual abuse, also called child molestation, is a form of child abuse in which an adult or older adolescent uses a child for sexual stimulation. Forms of child sexual abuse include engaging in sexual activities with a child, indecent exposure, child grooming or using a child to produce child pornography. The global prevalence of child sexual abuse has been estimated at 19.7% for females and 7.9% for males. The Indian government has acknowledged that child sexual abuse is an issue which requires government intervention. Objective of the study: To assess the pretest level of knowledge regarding child sexual abuse among high school students. To develop and evaluate the structured teaching programme on child sexual abuse. To assess the posttest level of knowledge regarding child sexual abuse among high school students. To find the effectiveness of school-based education programme on child sexual abuse. To find out the association between pre-test knowledge score of knowledge on child sexual abuse with their selected demographic variables. Methods: The study involved non-experimental approach, and non-experimental one group pre and posttest design research design with non-probability convenient sampling technique. To collect the data from respondents, knowledge on child sexual abuse questionnaire was used and administered to 50 high school students following inclusion and exclusion criteria. The tool consisted 20 items regarding assessment of child sexual abuse. The results were described by using descriptive and inferential statistics. Result: In pretest 10.0% had adequate where as in posttest 90.0% of the samples reached adequate knowledge on child sexual abuse. This shows an improvement in knowledge level after STP. In the assessment of pretest overall mean knowledge mean percentage was 39.60. In the assessment of posttest overall mean knowledge mean percentage was 82.90. In this study the Calculated ‘t’ value 10.607 was higher than the tabulated ‘t’ value of 2.027. So, the H1hypothesis is accepted. The researcher concluded the teaching was effective. There was significant relationship between selected demographic variable ‘knowledge on child sexual abuse’ with the knowledge level on child sexual abuse, as the calculated chi-square value is higher than the tabulated value in the 0.05 level of significance. So, the null hypothesis was rejected and H2 was accepted.

Keywords: Sexual Abuse; Child; School; Structured Teaching Programme.