PRIMARY PREVENTION OF CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE - A CRITICAL-REVIEW .2.

This paper (Part II) and the previous paper (Part I) provide an overvi ew of the primary prevention of child maltreatment. Part II focuses on the effectiveness of interventions aimed at the primary prevention of child sexual abuse. It includes prospective controlled trials publish ed between January 1979 and May 1993. These studies were systematicall y identified and the quality of each trial was determined using criter ia which assessed methodological rigor. Interventions aimed at the pre vention of sexual abuse were classified into eight main categories bas ed on the method of intervention. All programs had education as the pr imary focus. There is evidence that educational programs can improve s afety skills and knowledge of children about sexual abuse but no study has produced data that education actually reduces the occurrence of s exual abuse.