%0 Journal Article
%T A Bayesian Decision
%A Alessandro Tadei
%A Jan Antfolk
%A Johan Pensar
%A Jukka Corander
%A Katarina Finnil£¿
%A Pekka Santtila
%J Sexual Abuse
%@ 1573-286X
%D 2019
%R 10.1177/1079063217732791
%X In assessments of child sexual abuse (CSA) allegations, informative background information is often overlooked or not used properly. We therefore created and tested an instrument that uses accessible background information to calculate the probability of a child being a CSA victim that can be used as a starting point in the following investigation. Studying 903 demographic and socioeconomic variables from over 11,000 Finnish children, we identified 42 features related to CSA. Using Bayesian logic to calculate the probability of abuse, our instrument¡ªthe Finnish Investigative Instrument of Child Sexual Abuse (FICSA)¡ªhas two separate profiles for boys and girls. A cross-validation procedure suggested excellent diagnostic utility (area under the curve [AUC] = 0.97 for boys and AUC = 0.88 for girls). We conclude that the presented method can be useful in forensic assessments of CSA allegations by adding a reliable statistical approach to considering background information, and to support clinical decision making and guide investigative efforts
%K child sexual abuse
%K multimodal assessments
%K Bayesian logic
%K CSA investigation
%K decision making
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1079063217732791