Child abuse or child maltreatment is any kind of physical, sexual or psychological maltreatment or neglect of a child or children, especially by a parent or other caregiver. The prevalence of child abuse globally is estimated up to 1 billion children aged between 2-17 years have experienced physical, sexual or emotional violence or neglect as per the statistics of 2020 by WHO. It is the responsibility of the caretakers to protect their child and be aware of all the legal aid which is available for children afflicted with child abuse. So the study was conducted with the objectives as follows:

1.To assess the perception of caretakers regarding child abuse.

2.To determine the association between perception regarding child abuse and selected demographic variables.

A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among the caregivers of children below 15 years of age visiting paediatric OPD of SJMCH, Bangalore. A five-point Likert scale was used to assess the perception of child abuse. The data was analysed by using descriptive and inferential statistics.

In our study, the perception of caretakers regarding child abuse was good in many aspects. 75.15% of subjects strongly agreed to the statements that parents have the responsibility to teach children to differentiate between good touch and bad touch. 64.24% of the caregivers strongly agreed to the statement that children should report to their parents if they are ill-treated by others. There was a positive weak correlation between perception and attitude with an r value of 0.267.