Sexually abused children in a national survey of parents: Methodological issues.
Abstract
Abstract
In a national survey of 1,000 parents, which primarily concerned disciplinary practices and violence toward their children, two questions were asked about whether the children had been sexually abused. This was to assess the feasibility epidemiological research on contemporaneous sexual abuse using parental interviews rather than the usual adult retrospective approach. From these questions, rates of sexual abuse for children currently 0-17 were estimated at 1.9% in the last year and 5.7% ever. The cases making up these rates included a nearly equal number of boys and girls and no female victims between the ages of 9 and 12, a distribution different from those generally obtained by other epidemiological methods, but due possibly in this case to normal sampling variation. Cases, were more likely to be disclosed for children whose parents had themselves been sexually abused, who were from lower income households, or who were living with only one biologic parent. Although some of the findings suggest caution in generalizing about child sexual abuse from survey samples of parents, the method is worthy of exploration if only to gain better epidemiologic data about parent knowledge, reaction, reporting, and coping strategies.
Department
Sociology
Publication Date
1-1997
Journal Title
Child Abuse and Neglect
Publisher
Elsevier
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
10.1016/S0145-2134(96)00127-5
Document Type
Article
Recommended Citation
Finkelhor, D., Moore, D., Hamby, S.L., Straus, M.A. Sexually abused children in a national survey of parents: Methodological issues. (1997) Child Abuse and Neglect, 21 (1), pp. 1-9.