Reduction of Risk Factors for Pedophilic Sexual Offending

Abstract

Introduction: Exploratory analysis of characteristics and reduction of risk factors for child sexual abuse (CSA) in a sample treated in the Prevention Projects Dunkelfeld Hannover and Regensburg.

Aim: To evaluate a treatment program aimed at reducing dynamic risk factors (DRF) for CSA.

Methods: Using a psychometric test battery based on self-report questionnaires, intergroup analysis between treatment group (TG, n = 35), treatment refusers (TR, n = 51), and drop-out group (DO, n = 14) was conducted with pretreatment data. Intragroup analysis compared data of TG from pre- and posttreatment. The test battery included sociodemographic and sociosexual data, as well as questionnaires measuring DRF.

Main outcome measure: This study investigated effects of treatment on pedophilic men who are at risk for offending and observed reductions in important risk factors for CSA.

Results: TG, TR (consisting of persons who were offered but refused therapy), and DO did not differ regarding sociodemographic and sociosexual variables before therapy. There were no significant differences in education, relationship status, living solitarily, and being a father/stepfather. TR and DO lived farther away from treatment site than TG. In the TG, a reduction in offense-supportive attitudes, coping self-efficacy deficits, and child identification were revealed at second assessment. In TG no participants started the consumption of child abuse content during the course of the study.

Clinical implications: Future treatment concepts should focus on the reduction of empirically relevant risk factors for child sexual offending.

Strength & limitations: The present article is the first that compares TG to TR and DO before assessment regarding DRF and sociosexual variables. Moreover, it is only the second study that investigated treatment effects on a population of pedophilic men who are at risk for offending. These preliminary findings are limited by moderate group size and a missing control group.

Conclusion: A reduction in some but not all assessed risk factors for sexual offending against minors could be seen within the time frame of therapy. Findings are in line with results from a previous evaluation study. Engel J, Körner M, Schuhman P. Reduction of risk factors for pedophilic sexual offending. J Sex Med 2018;15:1629-1637.

Keywords: Child Sexual Abuse; Pedophilia; Prevention; Therapy.