Centre for Evidence-Based Intervention, Department of Social Policy & Intervention, University of Oxford Barnett House, 32 Wellington Square, Oxford, OX1 2ER, United Kingdom; OPTENTIA, Faculty of Health Sciences, North-West University, 1174 Hendrick Van Eck Boulevard, 1900 Vanderbijlpark, South Africa.
Faculty of Health Sciences, School of Psychology, Curtin University, Perth, Australia.
Child Abuse Negl. 2018 Aug;82:45-58. doi: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2018.05.022. Epub 2018 May 31.
Child abuse prevention research has been hampered by a lack of validated multi-dimensional non-proprietary instruments, sensitive enough to measure change in abuse victimization or behavior. This study aimed to adapt the ICAST child abuse self-report measure (parent and child) for use in intervention studies and to investigate the psychometric properties of this substantially modified tool in a South African sample. First, cross-cultural and sensitivity adaptation of the original ICAST tools resulted in two preliminary measures (ICAST-Trial adolescents: 27 items, ICAST-Trial caregivers: 19 items). Second, ICAST-Trial data from a cluster randomized trial of a parenting intervention for families with adolescents (N = 1104, 552 caregiver-adolescent dyads) was analyzed. Confirmatory factor analysis established the hypothesized 6-factor (adolescents) and 4-factor (caregivers) structure. Removal of two items for adolescents and five for caregivers resulted in adequate model fit. Concurrent criterion validity analysis confirmed hypothesized relationships between child abuse and adolescent and caregiver mental health, adolescent behavior, discipline techniques and caregiver childhood abuse history. The resulting ICAST-Trial measures have 25 (adolescent) and 14 (caregiver) items respectively and measure physical, emotional and contact sexual abuse, neglect (both versions), and witnessing intimate partner violence and sexual harassment (adolescent version). The study established that both tools are sensitive to measuring change over time in response to a parenting intervention. The ICAST-Trial should have utility for evaluating the effectiveness of child abuse prevention efforts in similar socioeconomic contexts. Further research is needed to replicate these findings and examine cultural appropriateness, barriers for disclosure, and willingness to engage in child abuse research.
儿童虐待预防研究受到缺乏经过验证的多维、非专用工具的阻碍，这些工具不够敏感，无法衡量虐待受害或行为的变化。本研究旨在改编 ICAST 儿童虐待自我报告量表（父母和儿童），用于干预研究，并在南非样本中调查该工具经过大量修改后的心理测量特性。首先，对原始 ICAST 工具进行跨文化和敏感性改编，产生了两个初步量表（ICAST-Trial 青少年：27 项，ICAST-Trial 照顾者：19 项）。其次，对一项针对青少年家庭的养育干预的集群随机试验的 ICAST-Trial 数据（N=1104，552 个照顾者-青少年对子）进行了分析。验证性因素分析建立了假设的 6 因素（青少年）和 4 因素（照顾者）结构。从青少年和照顾者中删除了两个项目，结果模型拟合度适中。同时的效标关联分析证实了儿童虐待与青少年和照顾者心理健康、青少年行为、纪律技巧和照顾者童年虐待史之间的假设关系。由此产生的 ICAST-Trial 量表分别有 25 项（青少年）和 14 项（照顾者），分别测量身体、情感和接触性性虐待、忽视（两种版本）以及目睹亲密伴侣暴力和性骚扰（青少年版本）。该研究表明，两种工具都能敏感地测量对养育干预的反应随时间的变化。ICAST-Trial 应该能够评估在类似社会经济背景下预防儿童虐待工作的有效性。需要进一步研究来复制这些发现，并检验文化适宜性、披露障碍以及参与儿童虐待研究的意愿。
