The Influence of Parent-Reported Parent-Child Communication Regarding Child Sexual Abuse Prevention on Child Experience of Sexual Abuse: The Sequential Mediating Role of Child-Reported Communication and Child Knowledge and Skills

Background: Child sexual abuse (CSA) is a widespread global public health issue, inflicting significant and lasting harm on victims, their families, communities, and society. Current studies have highlighted that parent-child communication about CSA prevention reduces the risk of CSA. However, the mechanisms underlying this protective effect remain underexplored. This study explores how parent-reported parent-child communication regarding CSA prevention affects children’s experiences of sexual abuse through sequential mediators: child-reported parent-child communication on CSA prevention, along with children’s knowledge and skills in CSA prevention.

Methods: This study adopted a cross-sectional design with cluster sampling to recruit 1,030 parent-child dyads (parents and their children) from third- to sixth-grade students (five classes per grade) at a primary school in Hubei Province, China. Data were collected using four validated scales: parent-reported parent-child communication on CSA prevention (PCOM) scale (23 items, α = 0.97), child-reported parent-child communication on CSA Prevention (CCOM) scale (23 items, α = 0.95), children’s knowledge and skills in CSA prevention (CKSK) scale (22 items, α = 0.71), children’s experiences of sexual abuse (CEXP) scale (12 items, α = 0.74). SPSS 27.0 and Mplus 8.3 were utilized for data analysis. Structural equation modeling (SEM) with maximum likelihood estimation was applied to assess mediation effects, using 5,000 bootstrap iterations to obtain bias-corrected confidence intervals for indirect effects.

Results: The hypothesized model exhibited a good fit, with χ²/df = 3.471, RMSEA = 0.049, CFI = 0.979, TLI = 0.968, and SRMR = 0.025. Further path analysis indicated that: (1) There was no significant direct effect between PCOM and CEXP (β = -0.036, p > 0.05), while PCOM significantly and positively predicted CCOM (β = 0.246, p < 0.001); (2) CCOM significantly and positively predicted CKSK (β = 0.245, p < 0.001); (3) The negative association between CKSK and CEXP (β = -0.144, p = 0.001) suggested that enhanced knowledge and skills in CSA prevention were linked to reduced occurrences of sexual abuse experiences among children. The above results indicated that PCOM affects CEXP through the sequential mediating effects of CCOM and CKSK (indirect effect = -0.009, 95% CI = [-0.021, -0.003]).

Conclusions and Implications: Findings highlight a critical need for parents to improve their communication skills with their children to prevent CSA. The pathway indicates that parental communication on CSA prevention needs first to be recognized by children to strengthen their knowledge and skills in preventing sexual abuse, which then reduces CSA risks. In practical terms, schools are encouraged to collaborate with families by designing parental training programs that strengthen communication about CSA prevention and implementing systematic CSA prevention curricula for children, thereby effectively reducing CSA risks. Future studies should validate this model with diverse samples (e.g., across regions and age groups) and investigate multilevel mechanisms (e.g., perceptual discrepancies, dyadic emotional dynamics, sociocultural norms) underlying parent-child discrepancies in CSA prevention communication.