The Effect of Self-Care Training on Cognitive Distortions in Volunteer Instructors of Sexual Education to Children

Background: Unfamiliarity with the process of self-care training andsexual education can make sexual education volunteer instructors stressfuland create incorrect attitudes for them. Therefore, the objective of thisstudy was to investigate the effectiveness of self-care training on cognitivedistortions in volunteer instructors of sexual education to children.Methods: This quasi-experimental study was conducted using a pretestposttestand control group design. The statistical population included allindividuals who volunteered to take part in the courses of instructortraining on sexual self-care skills and sexual education. These courses wereheld by the Civil Society Forum for Child Rights in 2018. Among thevolunteers, 30 people were selected by purposive sampling and wererandomly replaced into the interventional (15 individuals) and control (15individuals) groups. The questionnaire of cognitive distortions was used tocollect the required information and the collected data were analyzed viaANCONA by SPSS23.Results: The results showed that self-care training was effective oncognitive distortions of volunteer instructors of sexual education tochildren (P < 0.001). In other words, this training decreased cognitivedistortions of the volunteers. The effect of this training on cognitivedistortion was 78%.Conclusion: According to the Results, self-care training can decreasecognitive distortions of the volunteers by employing concepts such astraining technique of stopping anxieties, principles of positive andoptimistic thoughts, nurturing healthy personality, and raising selfawareness.As a result, they can show higher efficiency in training sexualsafety to children.

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words: Self-care training , Cognitive distortions , Sexual education , volunteer