Objective  To examine the situation and determinants of early childhood education on sexual assault prevention in rural areas of Luzhou municipality and to provide evidence for promoting the education among rural young children.

  Methods  With a self-designed questionnaire, we conducted an anonymous survey online among 2 258 parents/caregivers of 3 – 6 years old children in 12 kindergartens selected using stratified cluster sampling in rural areas of Luzhou city, Sichuan province between December 2021 and January 2022.

  Results  Of 2 218 participants with eligible responses, 38.46% and 25.16% reported educational activity for young children on sexual assault prevention ever performed in family settings and in kindergartens; and 16.55% reported the family-kindergarten communication about issues of the education on sexual assault prevention. The results of unconditional binary multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that the parental participants were more likely to be involved in their children′s education on sexual assault prevention in family settings (odds ratio OR = 3.06, 95% confidence interval 95%CI: 1.76 – 5.33), to report their children′s participating in the programs on the prevention of sexual assault in kindergartens (OR = 2.77, 95%CI: 1.57 – 4.91), and to conduct home-school communication about the status of the education (OR = 5.62, 95%CI: 3.12 – 10.13); the results also revealed multiple influencing factors for having the education on sexual assault prevention in young children as following: (1) promoting factors for the education in family setting: maternal occupation of public employee (OR = 2.37, 95%CI: 1.57 – 3.60), maternal occupations of other than teacher/public employee/worker (OR = 1.91, 95%CI: 1.36 – 2.68), with a caregiver having a better (scored ≥ 5 in a scale range of 0 – 7 ) sexual knowledge (OR = 1.75, 95%CI: 1.33 – 2.30), and caregiver′s positive attitude towards the education (OR = 3.84, 95%CI = 2.81 – 5.25); (2) hindering factor for the education in family setting: being a left-behind child (OR = 0.73, 95%CI: 0.60 – 0.89); (3) promoting factors for the education in kindergarten setting: having daycare in a public kindergarten (OR = 1.48, 95%CI: 1.19 – 1.85), in a middle class of kindergarten (OR = 1.42, 95%CI = 1.03 – 1.98), in a top class of kindergarten (OR = 1.79, 95%CI: 1.31 – 2.43), paternal occupation of teacher/doctor (OR = 1.58, 95%CI: 1.16 – 2.14), with a caregiver having a better sexual knowledge (OR = 1.97, 95%CI: 1.41 – 2.75), and caregiver′s positive attitude towards the education (OR = 3.02, 95%CI: 2.10 – 4.33); (4) hindering factors for the education in kindergarten setting: being an only child (OR = 0.69, 95%CI: 0.52 – 0.90) and being a left-behind child (OR = 0.64, 95%CI: 0.51 – 0.80); (5) promoting factors for the education-related family-school communication: paternal occupation of teacher/doctor (OR = 1.58, 95%CI: 1.16 – 2.14), paternal occupation of public employee (OR = 2.98, 95%CI = 1.35 – 6.57), and paternal occupations of other than teacher/doctor/public employee/worker (OR = 2.06, 95%CI: 1.31 – 3.24) (P < 0.05); (6) hindering factors for the education-related family-school communication: maternal education of junior high school (OR = 0.57, 95%CI: 0.39 – 0.85) or senior high school/specialized secondary school (OR = 0.59, 95%CI: 0.39 – 0.90) or junior college/undergraduate and above (OR = 0.38, 95%CI: 0.23 – 0.63) and being cared by grandparents (OR = 0.49, 95%CI: 0.35 – 0.68).

  Conclusion  The early childhood education on sexual assault prevention was at a low level and relevant measures should be taken to promote the education in rural areas of Luzhou city.