Educating Physicians Internationally in the Diagnosis of Child Sexual Abuse: Evaluation of a Brief Educational Intervention in Malawi

We designed this pilot study to assess physician knowledge and comfort evaluating child sexual abuse in Malawi and to evaluate the feasibility of a brief educational intervention to improve physician knowledge. A survey was administered to 21 physicians before receiving training on child sexual abuse. The survey was administered again, 3 days later, to assess improvement. Prior to the training, 48% correctly identified the hymen in a photograph, and 24% correctly interpreted the photograph as normal. Of the 11 physicians available for the posttest 3 days later, significant improvement was found in their ability to correctly identify the hymen (6 of 11 pretraining and all 11 posttraining, p = 0.011) and to interpret the photograph correctly (1 of 11 correct pretraining, 9 of 11 posttraining, p = 0.001). This study demonstrates the feasibility of designing trainings on child sexual abuse in a low-income country.