Abstract

The concept of emotional abuse of children presents the potential for major problems with accurate identification because of its reasonably high level of abstraction. This study of interobserver reliability tested the level of agreement among child welfare workers on the presence or absence of emotional abuse and several other forms of child abuse and neglect. Contrary to expectations, a high level of accurate identification and agreement was attained. Training for the sample used in the study is obviously effective. Despite the high level of interobserver reliability, the validity of the concept is questioned.

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