Trial reportBMC international health and human rights2017
Methods to increase reporting of childhood sexual abuse in surveys: the sensitivity and specificity of face-to-face interviews versus a sealed envelope method in Ugandan primary school children.
Trial report in BMC international health and human rights, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Pooled it
- Increasing disclosure of school-related gender-based violence: lessons from a systematic review of data collection methods and existing survey research.BMC public health · 2023Pooled it
- Longitudinal inconsistencies in women's self-reports of lifetime experience of physical and sexual IPV: evidence from the MAISHA trial and follow-on study in North-western Tanzania.BMC women's health · 2022Trial
- Patterns and predictors of male child sexual abuse among in-school male adolescents in Ibadan, Nigeria: a cross-sectional study.BMJ public health · 2026Article
- Prevalence of sexual violence against children and age at first exposure: a global analysis by location, age, and sex (1990-2023).Lancet (London, England) · 2025Article
- Violence against women and girls research: Leveraging gains across disciplines.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Adolescents' risky sexual behaviours and practices: Implications for sexuality education implementation in Zambia.African journal of primary health care & family medicine · 2024Article
- Childhood Environmental Instability and Social-Emotional Outcomes in Emerging Adults.Journal of interpersonal violence · 2022Article
- Why Do Women Talk About It? Reasons for Disclosure of Sexual Victimization and Associated Symptomology.Violence against women · 2021Article
- Sexual Victimization Disclosure: A Cluster Analysis Approach to Understanding Victimization Experiences in Disclosers and Non-Disclosers.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Article
- Remote evaluations of violence against women and girls interventions: a rapid scoping review of tools, ethics and safety.BMJ global health · 2021Article
- Sexual Violence against Children and Adolescents Taking Place in Schools: An Integrative Review.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2020Review
- Disclosure, reporting and help seeking among child survivors of violence: a cross-country analysis.BMC public health · 2020Article
- Interpersonal violence and suicidality among former child soldiers and war-exposed civilian children in Nepal.Global mental health (Cambridge, England) · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundUnderreporting of childhood sexual abuse is a major barrier to obtaining reliable prevalence estimates. We tested the sensitivity and specificity of the face-to-face-interview (FTFI) method by comparing the number of disclosures of forced sex against a more confidential mode of data collection, the sealed-envelope method (SEM). We also report on characteristics of individuals associated with non-disclosure in FTFIs.
methodsSecondary analysis of data from a cross-sectional survey conducted in 2014, with n = 3843 children attending primary school in Luwero District, Uganda. Sensitivity and specificity were calculated, and mixed effects logistic regression models tested factors associated with disclosure in one or both modes.
resultsIn the FTFI, 1.1% (n = 42) of children reported ever experiencing forced sex, compared to 7.0% (n = 268) in the SEM. The FTFI method demonstrated low sensitivity (13.1%, 95%CI 9.3-17.7%) and high specificity (99.8%, 95%CI 99.6-99.9%) in detecting cases of forced sex, when compared to the SEM. Boys were less likely than girls to disclose in the FTFI, however there was no difference in prevalence by sex using the SEM (aOR = 0.91, 95%CI 0.7-1.2; P = 0.532). Disclosing experience of other forms of sexual violence was associated with experience of forced sex for both modes of disclosure.
conclusionsThe SEM method was superior to FTFIs in identifying cases of forced sex amongst primary school children, particularly for boys. Reporting of other forms of sexual violence in FTFIs may indicate experience of forced sex. Future survey research, and efforts to estimate prevalence of sexual violence, should make use of more confidential disclosure methods to detect childhood sexual abuse.
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