knowledge and attitude and practice of parents in response to their children's sexual behavior

Context: parents’ competence has the most important role in the education of healthy sexual behavior tochildren under age 12 years.aims: this study was conducted to evaluate the knowledge and competence of parents in response totheir children’s sexual behavior.setting and design: this population‑based survey was conducted in mazandaran province, the province inthe northern region of iran, from october to january 2015.materials and methods: in this cross‑sectional study, 600 parents were selected by a cluster randomsampling technique. to assess parents’ sexual knowledge and competence, the “children’s sexual behaviorquestionnaire (csbq)” was used to collect data. mothers and fathers completed the questionnaire separately.statistical analysis used: descriptive statistics and multiple linear regressions were used for data analysis.results: of the total 600 participants (mothers or fathers), 41.3% were fathers. the mean age of fathers andmothers was 34.12 ± 6.32 and 32.24 ± 85.5, respectively. the majority of the parents (66.7%) had an averagelevel of knowledge in response to their children’s sexual behavior, whereas only 5% of the parents had appropriatecompetence in response to sexual behavior of their children. there was a positive association between parents’competence in response to children’s sexual behavior and their education (p < 0.001, β = 0.13), and a significantinverse association was observed between parents’ competence and their economic status (p = 0.02, β = −0.18).conclusion: in groups with low education, skill‑building training courses are essential. furthermore, appropriateinterventions should be designed for groups with high economic status who do not have a high competence.