Skip to main content

Advertisement

Log in

A Systematic Review of the Education and Awareness Interventions to Prevent Online Child Sexual Abuse

  • Original Article
  • Published:
Journal of Child & Adolescent Trauma Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Online child sexual abuse is highly prevalent in current society, in part, due to how technologically advanced children and adults have become. While much of the focus has been on perpetrator intervention, it is prudent to consider responses safeguarding children from potential perpetrators. Therefore, this review aimed to identify all the available empirical research on the prevention methods linked to education and awareness to determine the approaches' effectiveness, successes, and failures to aid future interventions. Databases were systematically searched for studies published between 2000 to 2020. Nine studies providing different prevention methods for online child sexual abuse were selected. A total sample of n = 672 and a descriptive approach was used for this study. While the interventions seemed to improve knowledge retainment of online safety, there was no significant change for risky online behavior. These findings provide specific suggestions for future interventions, particularly those focusing on risky online behaviors.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Fig. 1

Similar content being viewed by others

References 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Anastasia Patterson.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of Interest

The corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest on behalf of all authors.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Patterson, A., Ryckman, L. & Guerra, C. A Systematic Review of the Education and Awareness Interventions to Prevent Online Child Sexual Abuse. Journ Child Adol Trauma 15, 857–867 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40653-022-00440-x

Download citation

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40653-022-00440-x

Keywords

Navigation