Validity and reliability study of the Child Forensic Attitude Scale in Turkish and examination of professionals' forensic child attitudes in terms of different variables

Accurate and effective evaluation of child abuse is critically important for identifying abuse cases and protecting victims. The aim of this study is to assess the Turkish validity and reliability of the Forensic Child Attitude Scale (FCAS) and to examine the forensic child attitudes of professionals in terms of different variables. This research is a two-stage cross-sectional study. In the first stage, the validity and reliability analysis of the FCAS was conducted across Turkey, while in the second stage, the scale was tested on a sample from the Burdur province. In the first stage, the study began with a sample of 309 participants, and the final sample size was calculated as 395. Data were collected from educators, healthcare professionals, legal professionals, and social workers working with children using the Personal Information Form, FCAS, the Attitude Scale Toward Sexually Abused Children (ASTSAC), and the Gender Roles Attitude Scale (GRAS). Data analyses included methods such as content validity, Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), Content Validity Index (CVI), Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO), and Bartlett's Test of Sphericity (BTS). The KMO value of the scale was found to be 0.829, and the BTS result was χ2(300)=3495.302,p<0.001\chi^2(300)=3495.302, p<0.001χ2(300)=3495.302,p<0.001. According to EFA and CFA results, the scale grouped into three factors and explained 47.99% of the total variance. The Cronbach's alpha coefficient for the overall scale was calculated as 0.806. In the second stage, data from 431 professionals indicated that the variables significantly affecting forensic attitudes included gender, age, doctoral-level education, experience in interviewing abused children, and receiving training on child sexual abuse. Furthermore, GRAS and ASTSAC scores were found to have a significant impact on forensic attitudes.