Dammeyer M D
Department of Psychology, University of Wyoming, Laramie 82071-3415, USA.
Behav Sci Law. 1998 Winter;16(1):21-34. doi: 10.1002/(sici)1099-0798(199824)16:1<21::aid-bsl291>3.0.co;2-k.
As reports of child sexual abuse (CSA) have risen, greater attention has been focused on how clinicians evaluate allegations of abuse. A common theme in the CSA assessment literature is to encourage comprehensive, multimodal assessments. This recommendation, however, is rarely accompanied by suggestions regarding how clinicians might integrate and differentially weight the information gathered. The present article is designed to address the issue of which sources of information clinicians should rely upon when conducting CSA assessments. Specifically, the commonly used indicators and procedures for assessing allegations of abuse are identified and then examined in light of their respective empirical literatures. It is concluded that medical examinations and the child's report are among the best sources of information, and should therefore be most heavily relied upon to arrive at accurate decisions. Clinicians are encouraged to adopt the mind set of a scientist conducting an a priori, hypothesis-driven research investigation. This approach should help clinicians avoid the temptation of post hoc analyses that reflect personal biases more than the actual data.
随着儿童性虐待（CSA）报告数量的增加，人们越来越关注临床医生如何评估虐待指控。CSA评估文献中的一个共同主题是鼓励进行全面的多模式评估。然而，这一建议很少伴随着关于临床医生如何整合所收集信息并进行不同权重处理的建议。本文旨在解决临床医生在进行CSA评估时应依赖哪些信息来源的问题。具体而言，确定了评估虐待指控的常用指标和程序，然后根据各自的实证文献进行审查。得出的结论是，医学检查和儿童的报告是最佳信息来源之一，因此在做出准确决策时应最依赖它们。鼓励临床医生采用进行先验的、假设驱动的研究调查的科学家的思维方式。这种方法应有助于临床医生避免事后分析的诱惑，因为事后分析更多地反映个人偏见而非实际数据。
