The influence of abuse situation and respondent background characteristics on Korean nurses’ perceptions of child sexual abuse: A fractional factorial design

Objective This study was designed to identify characteristics of Korean nurses’ perceptions about child sexual abuse. More specifically, it was designed to examine to what extent various child sexual abuse incident characteristics and respondent background characteristics affect Korean nurses’ perceptions of the seriousness of child sexual abuse incidents. Methods A vignette design was used to assess 1029 Korean registered nurses’ perceptions of child sexual abuse. Seven abuse situation variables were organized into 64 vignettes in a one-fourth fractional factorial design. Respondents were given randomly selected and ordered samples of 16 of the vignettes and asked to indicate the degree of seriousness of the sexual abuse incidents portrayed in the vignettes. Information was also gathered about respondent demographics and personal history of child sexual abuse. Results Logistic regression analyses showed intrusiveness of the sexual act had the greatest impact on Korean nurses’ perceptions of the seriousness of child sexual abuse, followed by victim resistance, cross-gender combinations of victim and perpetrator, frequency of sexual acts, and age of perpetrator, all of which were abuse situational characteristics. With the exception of media exposure to sexual abuse, background characteristics and sexual abuse history had negligible effect on perceived seriousness. Conclusions Situational characteristics, not respondent characteristics, influence the perceived seriousness of child sexual abuse for Korean nurses. These findings are similar to those obtained previously with US samples.