Interviewing Indigenous adults reporting historical child sexual abuse: The effect of question types on eliciting descriptive answers and details

IF 3.4 2区心理学 Q1 FAMILY STUDIES

Child Abuse & Neglect Pub Date : 2025-05-13 DOI:10.1016/j.chiabu.2025.107492

Kate Chenier, Rebecca Milne, Andrea Shawyer, Andy Williams

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Background

International evidence-based best practice for police interviewers of vulnerable groups, such as Indigenous populations, recommends encouraging interviewees to give a full uninterrupted account, followed by open-ended questions, to optimise memory and avoid contaminating information. However, most research examining the applicability of interview strategies on information gain has been conducted in western cultures.

Objective

There is currently little extant quantitative research on questioning in police interviews with Indigenous complainants. The primary objective of this research was to examine whether international standards for interviewing vulnerable groups for legal purposes are transferable to an Indigenous population.

Participants and setting

Police interviews with complainants reporting historical childhood sexual abuse [HCSA] as adults in a northern Canadian territory with an Indigenous population (N = 45 interviews) were examined.

Methods

Interviews were coded for types of questions, answers, and investigation-relevant details reported. Frequency distributions were calculated for each dependent variable, and further inferential statistics were conducted using t-test, chi square, and one-way ANOVA analyses, to examine the possible effect of question types on the elicitation of certain answer and detail types.

Results

Results showed a statistically significant difference in the mean number of overall details elicited (d = 0.29), with questions classed as productive eliciting more details compared to unproductive questions. Specifically, open-ended questions elicited the most details, including both overall details and abuse relevant details.

Conclusions

Although these results should be considered exploratory, the international guidance on interviewing vulnerable groups was found to be applicable to this Indigenous population.

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采访报告历史儿童性虐待的土著成年人：问题类型对引出描述性答案和细节的影响

针对弱势群体（如土著人口）的警察采访者的国际循证最佳实践建议，鼓励采访者提供完整的不间断陈述，然后提出开放式问题，以优化记忆并避免污染信息。然而，大多数关于面试策略对信息获取的适用性的研究都是在西方文化中进行的。目的目前很少有关于警方对土著投诉人进行问话的定量研究。这项研究的主要目的是审查为法律目的采访易受伤害群体的国际标准是否适用于土著居民。在加拿大北部地区的土著居民中（N = 45次访谈），研究了参与者和警方对报告儿童性虐待历史的投诉人的访谈。方法对访谈的问题类型、答案和调查相关细节进行编码。计算每个因变量的频率分布，并使用t检验、卡方和单因素方差分析进行进一步的推理统计，以检验问题类型对某些答案和细节类型的启发可能产生的影响。结果结果显示，在引出总体细节的平均数量上有统计学上的显著差异（d = 0.29），与非生产性问题相比，生产性问题引出了更多的细节。具体来说，开放式问题引出了最多的细节，包括总体细节和滥用相关细节。结论虽然这些结果应该被认为是探索性的，但国际上关于访谈弱势群体的指导意见适用于这一土著人口。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Child Abuse & Neglect Multiple-

CiteScore

7.40

自引率

10.40%

发文量

397

期刊介绍： Official Publication of the International Society for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect. Child Abuse & Neglect The International Journal, provides an international, multidisciplinary forum on all aspects of child abuse and neglect, with special emphasis on prevention and treatment; the scope extends further to all those aspects of life which either favor or hinder child development. While contributions will primarily be from the fields of psychology, psychiatry, social work, medicine, nursing, law enforcement, legislature, education, and anthropology, the Journal encourages the concerned lay individual and child-oriented advocate organizations to contribute.