Assistant Professor University of North Florida Jacksonville, Florida, United States
Overview: This study explores an understudied and underserved group of crime victims, male victims of sexual violence. Using data from the NISVS 2010 in a series of logistical regressions, this study describes who seeks help. These findings are discussed in relation to implications for policy, education, and clinical and macro practice.Proposal text:
Background: Victims of violent crimes’ psychological well-being is improved through services to victims. However, while help-seeking and disclosure of sexual victimization are challenging for all victims of sexual violence, victimized males may be even less likely to report sexual victimization than female victims of sexual assault. This reluctance leads to decreased use of support services. Studies have found that characteristics related to the victim, perpetrator, and the assault may all contribute to the victim’s decision to seek help. Though most studies related to sexual assault focus on female victims and perpetrators, it is possible that these explanatory variables are similarly related to help-seeking behavior among male victims. This study seeks to develop a better understanding of the relationships between individual, perpetrator, and incident-level characteristics and the help-seeking behaviors of male victims as a step toward increasing access to services for sexually victimized males.
Methods: Data from the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS) 2010 is used to explore associations between individual-level variables (race, sexual orientation, education, income), perpetrator-level variables (gender of perpetrator, relationship between victim and perpetrator) incident-level variables (injury, missing work or school, fear of perpetrator, and penetrative assault) and help-seeking behaviors at two levels: (1) any formal help-seeking (law enforcement, medical services, and mental health services) and (2) specifically seeking mental health services among male victims and nested incidents/perpetrators utilizing bivariate statistics, as well as a series of multilevel logistic regressions with a Poisson link function.
Results: At the individual-level, men who have sex with men were more likely to seek formal help (OR=3.05) and to specifically seek mental health services (OR=2.66). For each income level increase, the odds that the victim will have sought formal help decreased by .875 times. At the perpetrator-level, having been victimized by a male perpetrator is associated with an 86% increase in the proportion of individuals seeking formal help. Being victimized by a friend/acquaintance/family member is associated with an 81% increase in the proportion of individuals seeking mental health services. Intimate partner perpetrators were predictive of increased help-seeking (117% increase in the proportion of seeking formal help; 63% increase in proportion of seeking mental health services). At the incident-level, injury (67% increase in proportion), missing school or work (70% increase in proportion), and fear of perpetrator (61% increase in proportion) were positively associated with seeking formal help, however fear of perpetrator was associated with 21% decrease in the proportion of individuals seeking mental health services. Penetrative assault was predictive of increased use of all levels of help-seeking (44% increase in proportion of seeking formal help; 26% increase in proportion of seeking mental health services).
Conclusions: Results from this study may provide social workers with key information to develop policies and practices that decrease barriers to reporting crimes and seeking help that may especially impact male victims, to create community partnerships that allow male victims to be linked to needed stigma-free services, and to educate the next generation of social workers to better understand the need for comprehensive victims services.
