German Version of the Child Sexual Abuse Myth Scale (CSAMS-G): Translation, Expansion, and Construct Validation

TL;DR

This study introduces a German version of a scale to measure myths about child sexual abuse, validated among students in child protection-related fields.

Contribution

The paper presents a translated, expanded, and validated version of the Child Sexual Abuse Myth Scale for the German context.

Findings

The CSAMS-G showed good model fit and acceptable internal consistency.

Myth acceptance was generally low, with some exceptions for new items.

Gender and abuse history influenced myth acceptance scores.

Abstract

Research is needed on the myths regarding child sexual abuse in order to address commonly held misconceptions in persons training for professional careers in relevant fields for child protection. We present our translated, validated, and expanded Child Sexual Abuse Myth Scale (CSAMS-G). It was tested on a sample of 569 students studying either education, social work, law, or policing. Results of confirmatory factor analysis revealed a good model fit for our assumed factorial structure. Acceptable results on internal consistency were confirmed with McDonald’s ω. We also present the first results on the acceptance of child sexual abuse myths in our sample. Overall, myth acceptance was low, but a few exceptions were found, especially for the newly added items. We found group differences in factor scores for gender as well as between survivors and non-survivors of child sexual abuse.

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