engleski

Protection of Children’s Rights to Participate in Child Abuse and Neglect Researches: Methodological and Validity Implications

A child’s right to participate in a research on child abuse and neglect is a highly sensitive issue which should be addressed through ethical procedures in the study design. Methodological implications will be illustrated using the case of the ongoing BECAN study (www.becan.eu) that addresses child abuse and neglect of 11_16 year old schoolbound and dropout children in 9 Balkan countries. About 30.000 children will participate in the study. Due to the sensitive topic and the age of children, ethical procedures were highly elaborated (e.g. acceptable level of deception, researcher’s duty to report abuse, likelihood of abusive parents to decline consent for child to participate in the study). In some of the participating countries parents are required to provide active consent for the participation of children bellow the age of 14. Pilot studies in two countries showed that, when the informed consent form with the explanation letter was sent to parents, 46% in Croatia (CRO) and 58% in Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H) declined to give their consent. When parents were approached during the parents’ meeting, 8% in CRO and 20% in B&H declined to give consent. The challenge of addressing methodological implications will be discussed, as well as the need to balance the parents’ right to decide about their children and the right of children to participate in the trauma related studies.

child abuse and neglect; ethics; research implications; study validity

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