Construction and Validation of the Child Maltreatment Impact Scale (CMIS)

Abstract

The emotional impact is one of the forms of burnout that can affect mental health professionals dedicated to containing situations of child maltreatment and abuse. The objective of this investigation was to develop and validate a scale to assess the degree of emotional impact of health professionals when listening to an interview of a child or adolescent who has suffered traumatic experiences associated with chronic intrafamily abuse. Method: mental health and justice professionals who care for children in vulnerable situations from three Latin american countries participated. 46.5% of the participants belong to argentina (n = 99), 34.3% to Uruguay (n = 73) and 19.2% to Chile (n= 42). The participants completed an initial version of the scale with 44 items. Through exploratory factorial analysis, 38 items that evaluate five impact factors were retained: in a first factor negative emotions such as anger, anguish and sadness were located; in the second factor, inaction caused by fear, in which impotence and loneliness were grouped; then it was linked the third factor to disbelief that was defined as distrust and indignation; the fourth factor with empathy and the fifth factor with bewilderment. The internal consistency of the complete scale was excellent (ω = .90 and .75).