Preventing Physical and Emotional Violence by Teachers in Public Schools in Pakistan

NCT06001554 | Recruiting DMC

• 1 other identifier: ICC-T CRCT Pakistan
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 2,100
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief Summary

Violence has severe and long-lasting negative consequences for children and adolescents' well-being and psychosocial functioning, thereby also hampering communities and societies' economic growth. Studies show high prevalence rates of violence by teachers against children in Pakistan. In addition to legal and structural factors (e. g. stressful working conditions for teachers), attitudes favoring violence against children as an effective and acceptable discipline method and the lack of access to alternative non-violent strategies are likely to contribute to teachers' ongoing use of violence against children. Notwithstanding, there are currently very few school-level interventions to reduce violence by teachers that a) have been scientifically evaluated and b) that focus both on changing attitudes towards violence and on equipping teachers with non-violent discipline strategies. Thus, the present study tests the effectiveness of the preventative intervention Interaction Competencies with Children - for Teachers (ICC-T) in secondary schools in Pakistan. Previous studies have provided initial evidence on the feasibility to implement teacher violence interventions in secondary schools in Pakistan. This study aims to provide first evidence for the effectiveness of ICC-T to reduce violence and to improve children's functioning (i.e. mental health, well-being, academic performance) in Pakistan.

Conditions

Violence

Keywords

school violence; teacher violence; teachers; intervention; students; public schools; secondary schools

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (2)

• Change of students' exposure to emotional and physical violence by teachers

  The Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS) will be used to assess students' self-reported experiences of emotional and physical violence by teachers at school in the past week. Higher scores indicate higher levels of violence that is used by teachers. We hypothesize a stronger reduction of exposure to violence in the intervention group compared to the control group.

  The CTS will be used at T0 (baseline, prior to intervention), T1 (first follow-up, 6 months after intervention) and T2 (second follow-up, 18 months after intervention)

• Change of teachers' use of emotional and physical violence

  The Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS) will be used to assess teachers' use of emotional and physical violent discipline measures against students in the past week. Higher scores indicate higher levels of violence that is used by teachers. We hypothesize a stronger reduction of the use of violence in the intervention group compared to the control group.

  The CTS will be used at T0 (baseline, prior to intervention), T1 (first follow-up, 6 months after intervention) and T2 (second follow-up, 18 months after intervention)

Secondary Outcomes (4)

• Change of teachers' positive attitudes towards emotional and physical violence

  The adapted version of CTS will be used at T0 (baseline, prior to intervention), T1 (first follow-up, 6 months after intervention) and T2 (second follow-up, 18 months after the intervention)

• Change of student's mental health

  The PSC-Y will be used at T0 (baseline, prior to intervention), T1 (first follow-up, 6 months after intervention) and T2 (second follow-up, 18 months after intervention)

• Change of students' quality of life

  The KIDSCREEN-10 will be used at T0 (baseline, prior to intervention), T1 (first follow-up, 6 months after intervention) and T2 (second follow-up, 18 months after intervention)

• Change of students' cognitive functioning

  The app-based tasks will be used at T0 (baseline, prior to intervention), T1 (first follow-up, 6 months after intervention) and T2 (second follow-up, 18 months after intervention)

Other Outcomes (2)

• Change of students' academic performance

  Students' grades will be collected at T0 (baseline, prior to intervention), T1 (first follow-up, 6 months after intervention) and T2 (second follow-up, 18 months after intervention).

• Change of peer violence

  he Multidimensional Peer Victimization Scale will be used at T0 (baseline, prior to intervention), T1 (first follow-up, 6 months after intervention) and T2 (second follow-up, 18 months after intervention)

Study Arms (2)

ICC-T

EXPERIMENTAL

5 days with 8 hours of training for teachers. Core training components include teacher-student interaction, maltreatment prevention, effective discipline strategies, identifying and supporting burdened students and implementation of the training materials into the school setting

Behavioral: Interaction Competencies with Children - for Teachers (ICC-T)

monitoring condition

NO INTERVENTION

No intervention

Interventions

Interaction Competencies with Children - for Teachers (ICC-T) BEHAVIORAL

Core training components include teacher-student interaction, maltreatment prevention, effective discipline strategies, identifying and supporting burdened students and implementation of the training materials into the school setting

ICC-T

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 11 Years - 62 Years
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: No
• Age Groups: Child (0-17), Adult (18-64)

You may qualify if:

• All: Written informed consent (if underaged by parents (written) \& minors themselves (written) Students: Enrollment in selected secondary school Teachers: All teachers employed at the selected schools
• Schools:
• Public secondary schools Day schools At least 30 students in selected class/stream

You may not qualify if:

• Students and teachers:
• Acute drug or alcohol intoxication Acute psychotic disorder

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Bielefeld University: lead
• Shifa Foundation: collaborator
• Shifa International Hospital: collaborator
• Mclean Hospital: collaborator
• University of Konstanz: collaborator

Study Sites (1)

Shifa International Hospitals

Islamabad, Pakistan

RECRUITING

Related Publications (1)

• Khan A, Goessmann K, Scharpf F, Shah FKS, Kirika A, Azhar K, Yousafzai AW, Hoeffler A, Hecker T. Preventing physical and emotional violence by teachers in public schools in Pakistan: study protocol for a cluster-randomized controlled trial of the intervention Interaction Competencies with Children - for Teachers (ICC-T). BMC Public Health. 2025 May 24;25(1):1924. doi: 10.1186/s12889-025-23144-x.

  PMID: 40413430 DERIVED

Study Officials

• Alaptagin Khan, MBBS

  McLean Hopstial

  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

Central Study Contacts

Tobias Hecker, PhD

CONTACT

+49 521 106 3105; tobias.hecker@uni-bielefeld.de

Alaptagin Khan, MBBS

CONTACT

+1 617 855 2096; AKHAN@MCLEAN.HARVARD.EDU

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: RANDOMIZED
• Masking: DOUBLE
• Who Masked: PARTICIPANT, OUTCOMES ASSESSOR
• Purpose: PREVENTION
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: SPONSOR

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: August 14, 2023
• First Posted: August 21, 2023
• Study Start: September 15, 2023
• Primary Completion (Estimated): July 1, 2026
• Study Completion (Estimated): December 1, 2026
• Last Updated: April 9, 2024

Record last verified: 2023-07

Data Sharing

• IPD Sharing: Will share
• Shared Documents: STUDY PROTOCOL, SAP, CSR, ANALYTIC CODE
• Time Frame: The anonymized data will be made publicly available after completion of the project in 2027
• Access Criteria: During the project, anonymized data will be shared only with partners working in other ICC-T projects and other researchers working in prevention of violence against children upon request. After the completion of the project, the anonymized data will be available to the public.

Locations

PA (1)