Professionals' perceptions of challenges and directions for child sexual abuse research.

The purpose of this descriptive study guided by the adaptation of the Vulnerable Populations model was to identify the challenges and future directions for research in child sexual abuse with professionals in the field of child maltreatment using an on-line survey of 30 questions.

The rationale for this study is the apparent gap in knowledge about various aspects of the victims of child sexual abuse and the need to solicit information from those with experience in the field of child sexual abuse regarding those gaps and the directions future research should take.

The survey will answer the following questions: (1) What do professionals/researchers in the field of child maltreatment identify as barriers to research with the population of sexually abused children? (2) Do these barriers prevent/inhibit research and to what extent do they affect research at the point of disclosure? (3) What do professionals/researchers in the field of child maltreatment believe are the priorities for research with sexually abused children?

There were 191 respondents representing the fields of social work, medicine/nursing, mental health and law.

Results indicate that the significant challenges of legal barriers and the difficulties obtaining approvals for research hinder the ability to complete research in child sexual abuse especially at the point of disclosure when the evaluation of the abuse has just begun.

There was considerable agreement regarding the priorities that the future direction of research needed to take to identify additional risk factors, such as child's exposure to sexual material in the media, personality, friendships and culture, for child sexual abuse as well as ways to involve clinicians in the planning of research projects and the timely access to results.

An overwhelming majority of the respondents felt that the translation of research into service programs was critically important.