Formal help-seeking of community-based Czech people who are sexually interested in minors is linked to the perceived urgency of self-identified concerns

Lenka Martinec Nováková^1*Lucie Krejčová²Klára Bártová¹Renáta Androvičová²Kateřina - Klapilová²

• ¹Department of Psychology and Life Sciences, Faculty of Humanities, Charles University, Prague, Prague, Czechia
• ²National Institute of Mental Health (Czechia), Prague, Prague, Czechia

In the community, there are non-forensic people who have a sexual interest in minors and specific mental health needs and concerns. If unaddressed, these may contribute to problematic sexual behaviors. Supportive treatment programs, which are emerging in Czechia, can promote psychological well-being. However, self-motivated help-seeking is generally low in this at-risk population. To effectively encourage future preventive service take-up, we aimed to link past help-seeking experiences with factors that, based on the literature, may affect whether professional help is sought or not. We surveyed online a purposive sample of 97 community-based (predominantly male) non-forensic adults with a self-declared sexual interest in minors and investigated how self-reported past formal help-seeking behaviors (any vs none) relate to perceived urgency of existing self-identified concerns and dismissive attitudes towards professional assistance, controlling for other forms of support sought. We found that formal support sources were seldom approached, which was significantly linked to low perceived urgency of self-identified concerns, β = 0.33, F(1) = 6.34, p = 0.014. We conclude that to encourage professional service take-up by these difficult-to-reach individuals, it is essential to promote mental health literacy in the entire community and educate people on the role of psychological well-being in the prevention of problematic behaviors.