PSYCHOMETRIC PROPERTIES OF THE PERSONAL SAFETY QUESTIONNAIRE AND “WHAT IF” SITUATIONS TEST: PERSIAN VERSIONS

Childhood sexual abuse (CSA) is a serious public health problem and is one of the most stressful life events that parents and their children can experience. To prevent CSA, personal safety programs are recommended to enhance children's knowledge and related self-protection skills. In order to assess the knowledge and ability of children to prevent CSA, it is essential to have valid and reliable measures. Two instruments – the Personal Safety Questionnaire (PSQ) and “What If” Situations Test (WIST) – have been used to assess children's knowledge about sexual abuse and measure children's ability to recognize and respond in hypothetical abusive situations. The aims of this study were to translate and culturally adapt the PSQ and WIST for an Iranian target population, and determine the psychometric properties of the two measures. The translation and cultural adaptation process of PSQ and WIST followed recog-nized and established guidelines. Face and content validity were assessed by analyzing feedback solicited from 25 Kindergartner-aged girls and 11 professionals with expertise in different areas. Stability was assessed through test-retest reliability and internal consistency reliability was measured using Cronbach's alpha. Minor cultural differ-ences were identified and resolved during the translation and validation processes. Results from correlational anal-yses indicate a high degree of stability for both Persian version of PSQ and WIST and its subscales. Internal con-sistency reliability as measured by Cronbach's alpha for the PSQ-P was 0.74, and ranged from 0.71 to 0.96 for the subscales of WIST-P, with total skill reliability of 0.91. The Persian versions of the PSQ and WIST appear valid and reliable. Hence, they can be useful tools for assessing the knowledge and ability of children to prevent CSA.