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Abstract
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AbstractBackground
Child maltreatment is a global problem and the true extent remains unknown. The International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (ISPCAN) Child Abuse Screening Tool -- Children's Home version (ICAST-CH) has provided accurate assessment of the scope and prevalence of child maltreatment. Yet measures of children's experiences of child maltreatment are limited in the Chinese population.
OBJECTIVEs
The study aimed to translate and validate a Chinese version of the ISPCAN Child Abuse Screening Tool -- Children's Home version (ICAST-CH) and to evaluate its reliability and validity among Taiwan adolescents.
METHODS
A three phase study was conducted. In phase 1, the ICAST was translated into Chinese using forward-backward translation procedures with the translation equivalence and content validity assessed. In phase 2, the data provided by a convenience sample of 98 adolescents was used to assess the internal consistency of the ICAST-CH Chinese version (ICAST-CH-C). In phase 3, the psychometric properties of the ICAST-CH-C were tested with a nationwide random sample of 5236 adolescents from 35 schools.
RESULTS
The translation equivalence and content validity index of the ICAST-CH-C was satisfactory. The inter-rater agreements were.90-.91 for comparability of language and.89-.94 for similarity of interpretability.
RESULTS indicated that the ICAST-CH-C had a high level of equivalence with the original English version and demonstrated a high internal consistency (.71-.89). Confirmatory factor analysis revealed the presence of five factors supporting the conceptual dimension of the original instrument.
CONCLUSION
This study provided initial psychometric properties of the ICAST-CH-C and supports it as a reliable, valid, and highly usable instrument to identify childhood victimization in adolescents. It provided health care professionals with a useful tool to assess the severity and prevalence of child maltreatment within Chinese communities. |