Similar rates of denial in NICHD and control interviews with alleged child abuse victims in the Netherlands
Date
2024
Journal Title
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Publisher
Legal and Criminological Psychology
Abstract
Purpose: In the current study, we investigated whether denial and avoidance rates differed statistically significantly
based on the interview protocol used.
Method: We examined 38 National Institute of Child
Health and Human Development (NICHD) interview transcripts, and 30 control transcripts from interviews from an
earlier study (Applied Cognitive Psycholog y, 2022, 36, 7) conducted with alleged child victims of abuse at Dutch child
protection services.
Results: We detected 57 denial and 282 avoidance statements across the 68 interviews. No statistically significant
differences emerged between (1) the proportion of denials using NICHD (42%, n=16/38) and control interviews
(30%, n=9/30), and (2) the average number of denial statements between NICHD (M=0.84) and control interviews
(M=0.83). Furthermore, denials (and avoidances) were not
more or less likely to occur in response to certain types of
questions, even though the majority of denials in our sample occurred in response to option-posing questions (60%,
n=34/57). Denials did occur statistically significantly less
often within the first half of the individual interviews in
NICHD than in control interviews.
Conclusions: Our findings call attention to the difficulties child protection services face in investigative interviews
with alleged child victims
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Article
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Keywords
child abuse, child protection, denial, forensic interview, NICHD protocol
Citation
Bücken, C. A., Mangiulli, I., Erens, B., de Ruiter, C., & Otgaar, H. (2024). Similar rates of denial in NICHD and control interviews with alleged child abuse victims in the Netherlands. Legal and Criminological Psychology.