Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Correspondence concerning this paper should be addressed to Michael R. McCart, Ph. Phone: , Fax: , mccartm musc. This paper reviews the literature on help-seeking behavior among adult victims of crime. Specifically, the paper summarizes prevalence rates for formal and informal help seeking and reviews predictors of and barriers to service use following victimization.
Research suggests that only a small fraction of crime victims seek help from formal support networks; however, many seek support from informal sources. Several variables are associated with increased likelihood of formal help seeking, although the manner in which these variables affect reporting behavior is not clear.
From this review, it is concluded that much remains to be learned regarding patterns of help seeking among victims of crime. Gaps in the literature and directions for future research are discussed. Crime victimization represents an important public health problem in the United States.
Due to the high rates of crime victimization and concomitant mental health and medical problems in the general population, patterns of help seeking among adult crime victims represent an important area of investigation. Distinctions are commonly made in the help-seeking literature between formal and informal sources of support.
Formal helpers include trained professionals, such as law enforcement officials, mental health workers, and physicians. Informal helpers include members of informal social networks, such as family and friends. To our knowledge, no comprehensive review of the help-seeking literature has been published to date. Thus, in this paper, we attempt to synthesize existing data on formal and informal help seeking among victims of crime.
