A Novel Scale to Communicate Perceived Likelihood of Child Sexual Abuse.

ABSTRACT:

Background and objective

Child abuse pediatricians (CAPs) are often asked to determine the likelihood that a particular child has been sexually abused. These determinations affect medical and legal interventions, and are important for multisite research. No widely accepted scale is available to communicate perceived sexual abuse likelihood. In this study, we measure intra- and inter-rater reliability of a 5-point scale to communicate child sexual abuse likelihood.

Methods

We developed a 5-point scale of perceived likelihood of child sexual abuse with example cases and medical-legal language for each risk category. We then surveyed CAPs who regularly perform sexual abuse evaluations using the abstracted facts of 15 actual cases with concern for sexual abuse. A subset of parti

SUBMITTER: Melville JD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7200293 | biostudies-literature | 2020 May - Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature