Understanding cyber grooming in children and adolescents: a scoping review of risk factors and prevention strategies.

Childhood maltreatment is a key modifiable risk factor for poor mental health. Childhood maltreatment can be measured through either prospective measures, typically derived from informant reports and observations, or retrospective self-reported measures, which identify largely non-overlapping groups. Nevertheless, much of our understanding of its long-term effects and underlying mechanisms comes from studies comparing groups of individuals with versus without retrospective self-reports of maltreatment, which are quicker, easier and cheaper to collect than prospective measures. Retrospective self-reports also show stronger associations with psychopathology than prospective measures, regardless of whether they are corroborated by prospective evidence. But how stable is this method of classification over time? Instability in childhood maltreatment reports could pose serious threats to both research and practice. Concerns about the low temporal stability of retrospective self-reports stem from their reliance on memory and subjective interpretation, which can be influenced by cognitive biases, emotional states and reappraisals over time. Furthermore, the instability of childhood maltreatment reports may be compounded by normative developmental changes in autobiographical memory. From a neurobiological perspective, early life memories depend heavily on an immature hippocampal system, resulting in weaker encoding and inefficient consolidation—a combination that contributes to rapid forgetting and childhood amnesia. In contrast, with age, the hippocampus matures, supporting stronger episodic encoding, and hippocampal–cortical connectivity increases substantially. These expanding connections with distributed cortical networks (supported by schema-based organization and repeated retrieval or narrative rehearsal) enhance systems consolidation and may lead to greater long-term retention and reduced forgetting in later life. Low stability of retrospective maltreatment measures contributes to measurement error and misclassification. In turn, misclassification could lead researchers to underestimate associations between maltreatment and outcomes, observe inconsistent findings across studies and struggle to identify underlying mechanisms by weakening mediation and moderation tests. Similarly, misclassification could lead legal, social care and clinical practitioners to provide inadequate or inappropriate interventions to mitigate the impact of childhood maltreatment. Several studies have empirically tested the stability of retrospective self-reports with inconsistent results, highlighting the need for a quantitative summary and a better understanding of the heterogeneity in the literature. Several factors may explain the inconsistencies. First, the maltreatment type (for example, abuse versus neglect) may be relevant, as experiences can differ in their emotional salience and thus be differentially appraised and recalled over time. Second, the sample characteristics: convenience samples may show higher stability than population-representative samples because of the effects of self-selection or differential attrition over time; clinical samples are a pertinent example, in which participants with psychiatric diagnoses may show higher stability of recall than healthy controls due to cognitive mechanisms linked to psychopathology (for example, mood congruency effects, rumination, causal search biases or increased reflection on the past in therapy). Third, measurement type (for example, interviews versus questionnaires), as interviews may reduce measurement error by allowing clarifications but are also more prone to social desirability bias, whereas questionnaires may be more prone to measurement error but offer privacy that may enhance consistency. Fourth, demographic factors: some evidence suggests that female individuals may show higher report stability than male individuals; younger age may also be associated with lower stability, as children and adolescents may initially struggle to identify maltreatment, have less developed memory processes and continue developing their identity and life narratives. Fifth, the follow-up interval may be a factor, as longer intervals could be associated with lower stability, consistent with the forgetting curve.