The Good Schools Toolkit to prevent violence against children in Ugandan primary schools: study protocol for a cluster randomised controlled trial

Trials

Dipak Naker³  Charlotte Watts²  Diana Elbourne²  Jenny Parkes¹  Eddy Walakira⁴  Jennifer C Child²  Elizabeth Allen²  Karen M Devries² 

[1] Institute of Education, London, UK;London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, 15-17 Tavistock Place, London WC1H 9SH, UK;Raising Voices, 16 Tufnell Drive, P O Box 6770, Kampala, Uganda;Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda

关键词: Education;    Mental health;    Uganda;    Violence;    Primary school;    Corporal punishment;   

Others  :  1093344
DOI  :  10.1186/1745-6215-14-232

 received in 2013-02-11, accepted in 2013-07-01,  发布年份 2013

【 摘 要 】

Background

We aim to evaluate the effectiveness of the Good School Toolkit, developed by Raising Voices, in preventing violence against children attending school and in improving child mental health and educational outcomes.

Methods/design

We are conducting a two-arm cluster randomised controlled trial with parallel assignment in Luwero District, Uganda. We will also conduct a qualitative study, a process evaluation and an economic evaluation. A total of 42 schools, representative of Luwero District, Uganda, were allocated to receive the Toolkit plus implementation support, or were allocated to a wait-list control condition. Our main analysis will involve a cross-sectional comparison of the prevalence of past-week violence from school staff as reported by children in intervention and control primary schools at follow-up.

At least 60 children per school and all school staff members will be interviewed at follow-up. Data collection involves a combination of mobile phone-based, interviewer-completed questionnaires and paper-and-pen educational tests. Survey instruments include the ISPCAN Child Abuse Screening Tools to assess experiences of violence; the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire to measure symptoms of common childhood mental disorders; and word recognition, reading comprehension, spelling, arithmetic and sustained attention tests adapted from an intervention trial in Kenya.

Discussion

To our knowledge, this is the first study to rigorously investigate the effects of any intervention to prevent violence from school staff to children in primary school in a low-income setting. We hope the results will be informative across the African region and in other settings.

Trial registration

clinicaltrials.gov NCT01678846

【 授权许可】

   
2013 Devries et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

【 图 表 】

Figure 1.

【 参考文献 】

• [1]Pinheiro PS: World Report on Violence Against Children. New York: United Nations; 2006.
• [2]Youssef R, Attia M, Kamel M: Children experiencing violence. II: Prevalence and determinants of corporal punishment in schools. Child Abuse Negl 1998, 22:975-985.
• [3]Mahmoud A, Ayanniyi A, Salman M: Observations of teachers in Ilorin, Nigeria on their practices of corporal punishment that are potentially injurious to their pupils’ eyes. Ann Afr Med 2011, 10:150-154.
• [4]Naker D: Violence Against Children: The Voices of Ugandan Children and Adults. Kampala: Raising Voices, Save the Children Uganda; 2006.
• [5]Leach F, Humphreys S: Gender violence in schools: taking the ‘girls-as-victims’ discourse forward. Gend Dev 2007, 15:51-65.
• [6]Leach F, Fiscian V, Kadzamira E, Lemani E, Machakanja P: An Investigative Study of the Abuse of Girls in African Schools. In Educational Paper No. 54. London: Department for International Development; 2003.
• [7]Muhanguzi FK: Gender and sexual vulnerability of young women in Africa: experiences of young girls in secondary schools in Uganda. Cult Health Sex 2011, 13:713-725.
• [8]Ackard DM, Eisenberg ME, Neumark-Sztainer D: Long-term impact of adolescent dating violence on the behavioral and psychological health of male and female youth. J Pediatr 2007, 151:476-481.
• [9]Kendler KS, Karkowski LM, Prescott CA: Causal relationship between stressful life events and the onset of major depression. Am J Psychiatry 1999, 156:837-841.
• [10]Devries KM, Watts C, Yoshihama M, Kiss L, Schraiber LB, Deyessa N, Heise L, Durand J, Mbwambo J, Jansen H, Berhane Y, Ellsberg M, Garcia-Moreno C, WHO Multi-Country Study Team: Violence against women is strongly associated with suicide attempts: evidence from the WHO multi-country study on women’s health and domestic violence against women. Soc Sci Med 2011, 73:79-86.
• [11]Dube SR, Anda RF, Felitti VJ, Chapman DP, Williamson DF, Giles WH: Childhood abuse, household dysfunction, and the risk of attempted suicide throughout the life span. Findings from the adverse childhood experiences study. JAMA 2001, 286:3089-3096.
• [12]Foshee VA, Benefield TS, Ennett ST, Bauman KE, Suchindran C: Longitudinal predictors of serious physical and sexual dating violence victimization during adolescence. Prev Med 2004, 39:1007-1016.
• [13]Gilbert R, Widom CS, Browne K, Fergusson D, Webb E, Janson S: Burden and consequences of child maltreatment in high-income countries. Lancet 2009, 373:68-81.
• [14]McCabe K, Lucchini SE, Hough RL, Yeh M, Hazen A: The relation between violence exposure and conduct problems among adolescents: a prospective study. Am J Orthopsychiatry 2005, 75:575-584.
• [15]Fang X, Massetti GM, Ouyang L, Grosse SD, Mercy JA: Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, conduct disorder, and young adult intimate partner violence. Arch Gen Psychiatry 2010, 67:1179-1186.
• [16]Boden JM, Horwood LJ, Fergusson DM: Exposure to childhood sexual and physical abuse and subsequent educational achievement outcomes. Child Abuse Negl 2007, 31:1101-1114.
• [17]Randolph MK, Gold CA: Child sexual abuse prevention: Evaluation of a teacher training program. Sch Psychol Rev 1994, 23:485-495.
• [18]Zwi K, Woolfenden SR, Wheeler DM, O’brien TA, Tait P, Williams KW: School-based education programmes for the prevention of child sexual abuse. Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2007., 3CD004380
• [19]Vreeman RC, Carroll AE: A systematic review of school-based interventions to prevent bullying. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med 2007, 161:77-88.
• [20]Farrington DP, Ttofi MM: School-Based Programs to Reduce Bullying and Victimization. Campbell Systematic Reviews 2009., 6
• [21]Totten DM, Quigley P, Morgan M: Safe School Study. Ottawa: Canadian Public Health Association/Youth Services Bureau of Ottawa and National Crime Prevention Strategy of Canada; 2005.
• [22]Baker-Henningham H, Walker S, Powell C, Gardner JM: A pilot study of the Incredible Years Teacher Training programme and a curriculum unit on social and emotional skills in community pre-schools in Jamaica. Child Care Health Dev 2009, 1:1-13.
• [23]United Nations Children‘s Fund: Child Friendly Schools Programming: Global Evaluation Report. New York: United Nations Children‘s Fund; 2009.
• [24]Patel V, Flisher AJ, Nikapota A, Malhotra S: Promoting child and adolescent mental health in low and middle income countries. J Child Psychol Psychiatry 2008, 49:313-334.
• [25]Abraham C, Michie S: A taxonomy of behavior change techniques used in interventions. Health Psychol 2008, 27:379-387.
• [26]Jewkes R, et al.: Impact of stepping stones on incidence of HIV and HSV-2 and sexual behaviour in rural South Africa: cluster randomised controlled trial. BMJ 2008, 337:a506.
• [27]Webster-Stratton C: Quality Training, Supervision, Ongoing Monitoring, and Agency Support: Key Ingredients to Implementing The Incredible Years Programs with Fidelity. Washington: University of Washington; 2004.
• [28]Prochaska JO, Velicer WF: The transtheoretical model of health behavior change. Am J Health Promot 1997, 12:38-48.
• [29]Twa-Twa JM, Oketcho S: Global School Based Student Health Survey 2003: Uganda Country Report. Kampala, Uganda: Ministry of Health, School Health Section and Ministry of Education and Sports; 2005.
• [30]International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect: The ISPCAN Child Abuse Screening Tool- Child Version. Manual and Proposed Guidelines for Pilot Administration. Geneva: International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect..
• [31]Garcia-Moreno CJ, Ellsberg H, Heise M, Watts L: WHO Multi-Country Study on Womens Health an Domestic Violence against women. Geneva: WHO; 2005.
• [32]Brooker S, Okello G, Njagi K, Dubeck MM, Halliday KE, Inyega H, Jukes MC: Improving educational achievement and anemia of school children: design of a cluster randomized trial of school-based malaria prevention and enhanced literacy instruction in Kenya. Trials 2010, 11:93. BioMed Central Full Text
• [33]Goodman R, Ford T, Simmons H, Gatward R, Meltzer H: Using the strengths and difficulties questionnaire (SDQ) to screen for child psychiatric disorders in a community sample. Br J Psychiatry 2000, 177:534-539.
• [34]Hayes R, Moulton L: Cluster Randomised Trials, Interdisciplinary Statistics Series. Boca Raton: Chapman & Hall; 2009.