The methodological, legal, and ethical issues related to questioning children about their maltreatment experiences in research studies are complex. A review of the literature was conducted examining what studies to date have directly asked children about victimization and how study investigators dealt with the human participants issues related to subsequent disclosure. This article examines how different studies have defined and operationalized abuse in survey questions for children, reports prevalence rates when available, describes the differing methods used to collect child self-report data, and highlights how investigators have dealt with the ethical issues related to informed consent and disclosure up to this point.
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