Adolescents' and adults' experiences of being surveyed about violence and abuse: A systematic review of harms, benefits, and regrets

T.M. Appollis, C. Lund, P.J. De Vries and C. Mathews

American Journal of Public Health, 2015, vol. 105, issue 2, e31-e45

Abstract: The neuroscience and psychological literatures suggest that talking about previous violence and abuse may not only be beneficial, as previously believed, but may also be associated with risks. Thus, studies on such topics introduce ethical questions regarding the risk-benefit ratio of sensitive research. We performed a systematic review of participants' experiences related to sensitive research and compared consequent harms, benefits, and regrets among victims and nonvictims of abuse. Thirty studies were included (4 adolescent and 26 adult studies). In adolescent studies, 3% to 37% of participants (median: 6%) reported harms, but none of these studies measured benefits or regrets. Among adults, 4% to 50% (median: 25%) reported harms, 23%to 100%(median: 92%) reported benefits, and 1% to 6% (median: 2%) reported regrets. Our results suggest that the risk-benefit ratio related to sensitive research is not unfavorable, but there are gaps in the evidence among adolescents.

Keywords: adolescent; adult; age; child abuse; crime victim; emotion; health survey; human; psychology; statistics and numerical data; violence, Adolescent; Adult; Age Factors; Child Abuse; Crime Victims; Emotions; Health Surveys; Humans; Violence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.2105/AJPH.2014.302293

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aph:ajpbhl:10.2105/ajph.2014.302293_3

DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2014.302293

Access Statistics for this article

American Journal of Public Health is currently edited by Alfredo Morabia

More articles in American Journal of Public Health from American Public Health Association
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Christopher F Baum ().