Contributo para a adaptação do protocolo de entrevista forense do NICHD ao contexto português

Abstract

Child sexual abuse is assumed to be a worldwide issue, having an impact on children’s lifes in several levels. Considering that a significant number of concealed cases exist, concerning this problematic, those who can have their disclosure present predominantly as only source of information and proof, the child, her report. Therefore emerges the Forensic Interview Protocol by the NICHD – National Institute of Child Health and Human Development – aiming to improve the child’s skills in the report level, strengthening the ability of giving information about an abusive incident. Being confirmed the protocol’s efficiency, it was important to adapt it to the Portuguese context, which was already initiated by previous studies. In this way, this investigation, above all, intends to study the child’s report abilities, especially the capability of providing consistent information about a specific event, verifying the potential of the type of questions that integrate the protocol. As such, for this study two groups of children were analyzed, what corresponded to a group of 17 children in school age, from who was collected information about a particular event through the application of the protocol; and a group of 14 children, to who was made an interview with a “non-specialist” psychologist in forensic interview. As such, ultimately it was intended to study the ability of improving the child skills as a qualified informer for the investigation of a particular problematic. In this way, the results prove that the use of protocol encourages a more detailed and consistent report by the child, in comparison with interviews that did not use it.

Date of Award	8 Jul 2013
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Raquel Matos (Supervisor) & Catarina Ribeiro (Co-Supervisor)