The measurement and assessment of child sexual abuse: A systematic review

Objectives While the critical need for child sexual abuse (CSA) to be consistently operationalized and measured has been an ongoing challenge for researchers, no review of CSA measurement instruments has been conducted in 15... [ view full abstract ]

Objectives
While the critical need for child sexual abuse (CSA) to be consistently operationalized and measured has been an ongoing challenge for researchers, no review of CSA measurement instruments has been conducted in 15 years. Further, a stronger focus on psychometric properties, positive and negative predictive power of CSA occurrence, cross-cultural validity, and methodological quality is needed. The goal of this study is to provide both a comprehensive examination of studies on the measurement of CSA, and a resource for scientists and practitioners wishing to identify instruments for use in their own work.

Methods
For the purposes of this review, articles were located by searching PsycINFO, MEDLINE, Cochrane Library, and EMBASE, using groups of text-based search terms derived from searches of current literature—including previous systematic reviews—and from web-based professional resources. Additionally, target journals were examined individually, and reference books were searched by hand. To be included in the review, studies must have been published since 2001 in a peer-reviewed journal. Only articles written in English were included. Instruments administered through face-to-face interviews and instruments administered through self, caregiver, professional, and clinician-report questionnaires were included for comparison purposes. While there were no restrictions on number of items measuring CSA on each instrument, included CSA measurement items can not have been integrated with items measuring other constructs (i.e. other forms of child maltreatment). The Consensus-based Standards for the Selection of Health Measurement Instruments (COSMIN) checklist provides design and statistical standards for studies of measurement properties, and was used to determine the quality of the methodology used in each study included in this review.

Results
Study selection and data extraction is ongoing. On our current timeline, data synthesis and meta-analysis will be completed by August 2016.

Conclusions
Thus far, identified studies have varied widely in methodological quality as defined by the COSMIN initiative.