Psychological Predictors of Help Needs in Male Dutch Prisoners

Abstract

In which ways are the subjective help needs of prisoners associated with the levels of psychological distress, mental disorders, treatment fearfulness, personality factors, and criminal thinking styles? This study found that detainees who expressed a subjective need for help had more psychoneurotic complaints and had more positive views of psychological help in general. Their fear for treatment, however, also turned out to be higher. Inmates who consider themselves in no need of help estimate a low possibility of actually seeking help in a situation in which they might encounter psychological problems. A significant proportion of prisoners expressed a subjective need for help. This need is related to several internal and external factors, and is shaped by approach and avoidance tendencies. Influencing the approach and avoidance motivation toward psychological help could improve chances that help and treatment needs would be converted into actual help-seeking behavior.

Keywords:

• prisoner
• mental disorder
• approach-avoidance
• treatment fearfulness
• helpseeking
• attitude
• psychological distress
• subjective need

The authors are grateful to Mieke Schoenmakers, Ester Beekmans, and Wendy van Bergen for their assistance. The research on which this publication is based has been supported by funding from the Dutch Ministry of Justice (Dienst Justitiële Inrichtingen). The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the Ministry of Justice.

Notes

¹Based on this dataset, also the construct validity and utility of the PICTS (Bulten, Nijman, & Van der Staak, 2009a) and psychiatric disorders and personality characteristics (Bulten, Nijman, & Van der Staak, 2009b) were studied.