Pathways to help: adolescent sexual assault victims' disclosure and help-seeking experiences.
In this study, we conducted semistructured interviews with N = 20 adolescent sexual assault victims who sought postassault help from the medical and legal system to understand young survivors' disclosure and help-seeking processes. Results revealed three distinct disclosure patterns and pathways to help-seeking. First, in the voluntary disclosure group, victims told their friends, who encouraged them to tell an adult, who then encouraged--and assisted--the survivors in seeking help. Throughout this process, the survivors' disclosures at each step were within their control and reflected their choices for how to proceed. Second, in the involuntary disclosure pattern, victims also first disclosed to friends, but then those friends told adults about the assault, against the survivors' wishes; the adults made the victims seek help, which was also against the survivors' preferences. Third, in situational disclosures, the survivors were unconscious at the time of the assault, and their friends disclosed and sought help on their behalf. We also examined how these initial disclosure patterns related to victims' continued engagement with these systems.
Department of Psychology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI rmc@msu.edu.
Rebecca
R
Campbell
Department of Psychology, DePaul University, Chicago, IL.
Megan R
MR
Greeson
Harder+Company Community Research, Los Angeles, CA.
Giannina
G
Fehler-Cabral
School of Social Work, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI.
Angie C
AC
Kennedy
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D003219:Confidentiality; D019548:Crime Victims; D030881:Disclosure; D005260:Female; D033062:Friends; D000066505:Help-Seeking Behavior; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010342:Patient Acceptance of Health Care; D026684:Personal Autonomy; D018907:Privacy; D011902:Rape; D017741:Survivors; D014473:Unconscious, Psychology; D055815:Young Adult
adolescents; disclosure; help-seeking; rape; sexual assault