Maintenance Notice

Due to necessary scheduled maintenance, the JMIR Publications website will be unavailable from Wednesday, July 01, 2020 at 8:00 PM to 10:00 PM EST. We apologize in advance for any inconvenience this may cause you.

Who will be affected?

Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Serious Games

Date Submitted: May 12, 2021
Date Accepted: Oct 25, 2021

The final, peer-reviewed published version of this preprint can be found here:

Development and Validation of a Mobile Game for Culturally Sensitive Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Education in Tanzania: Mixed Methods Study

Malamsha MP, Nkya ES, Luhanga ET

Development and Validation of a Mobile Game for Culturally Sensitive Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Education in Tanzania: Mixed Methods Study

JMIR Serious Games 2021;9(4):e30350

DOI: 10.2196/30350

PMID: 34747703

PMCID: 8663517

Development and validation of a mobile game for culturally-sensitive child sexual abuse prevention education for Tanzania: A mixed methods study

  • Maria Proches Malamsha; 
  • Elingarami Sauli Nkya; 
  • Edith Talina Luhanga

ABSTRACT

Background:

Educating children on sexual abuse is one of the most daunting challenges among parents and caretakers. Digital games are increasingly being used to influence health behaviours in children and could be an efficient and friendly approach to educating children about sexual abuse protection. However, little is known on how to develop a culturally sensitive game for the African context, where sexual education is still taboo, especially for younger children.

Objective:

In this work, we present a technology-based approach for educating both children and caregivers on child sexual abuse prevention (CSAP) while recognizing society's cultural appropriateness.

Methods:

HappyToto children’s game was co-designed with 111 parents/caretakers (52% females and 48% male) of children below 18 years, and 24 child experts in Tanzania, through a survey and focus group study. From this survey, we derived an overview of social-cultural practices, ecological settings and issues that should be considered when designing CSAP education interventions. We also conducted paper prototyping and storyboarding sessions of the game’s interface, storylines and options. The application prototype was validated through a survey with 32 parents (56% females and 44% males) of children aged 3 - 5 years and with 5 children (40% female and 60% male) of the same age group, from which we determined the acceptability and usability of the HappyToto mobile game.

Results:

Parents showed interest in the developed game, and each parent could on average navigate through all the parts of the game. The confidence level of parents in talking about CSAPE increased from an average of 3.56 “Neutral” before using the game to 4.9 “Confident” after using the game. The ability scores, calculated based on a range of topics they included in CSAPE talks with children, also increased from 5.67 out of 10, to 8.8 out of 10, after using the game. Both confidence level and ability scores were statistically significant. Children were interested in the game and wanted to play it again the next day, and a 5-year-old could correctly answer what they do when they are confronted with an unpleasant situation.

Conclusions:

The HappyToto game can thus be an effective technology-based intervention for improving the knowledge and skills of parents and children on child sexual abuse prevention education (CSAPE).


 Citation

Please cite as:

Malamsha MP, Nkya ES, Luhanga ET

Development and Validation of a Mobile Game for Culturally Sensitive Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Education in Tanzania: Mixed Methods Study

JMIR Serious Games 2021;9(4):e30350

DOI: 10.2196/30350

PMID: 34747703

PMCID: 8663517

Download PDF


Request queued. Please wait while the file is being generated. It may take some time.

© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.