Citation

Benia LR, Hauck-Filho N, Dillenburg M, Stein LM. J. Child Sex. Abus. 2015; 24(3): 259-279.

Affiliation

Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul , Rio Grande do Sul , Brazil.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2015, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/10538712.2015.1006749

PMID

25942285

Abstract

Systematic review and meta-analysis of literature were conducted examining the effectiveness of the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development Investigative Interview Protocol in improving the quality of child forensic interviews. Online databases were searched for journal articles published between the years 2000 and 2013. Measures of interview quality were the type of interviewer utterances and the amount of information provided by children. Five studies met criteria for inclusion in the meta-analysis. Weighted mean of the effect sizes was calculated for each outcome measure. Protocol interviews had more invitations (g = 1.60) and fewer option-posing (g = -.95) and suggestive prompts (g = -.63) than standard interviews. Children interviewed by the protocol provided more central details (g =.90) in response to invitations than controls. Meta-analyses of a subset of preschool children samples revealed that protocol interviews had more invitations (g = 1.46), fewer suggestive prompts (g = -.61), and fewer option-posing prompts (g = -1.05) than controls.

FINDINGS corroborate results from previous studies that suggested the benefits of the protocol on the interviewers' performance and on children's informativeness. However, protocol did not show the same performance with regard to preschool children.

Language: en