Relational Barriers: help-seeking social networks

According to PLOS One, help-seeking for mental health and substance use among people with criminal justice contact results from interacting influences of desire, ability, and the help-seeking context.

• 50 interviews were analyzed in the study, conducted between 1 November 2023 and 31 July 2024, according to PLOS One.
• According to PLOS One, relational influences in social networks (friends, family, peers, service staff) repeatedly shaped whether participants sought help.
• According to PLOS One, the authors report literature estimates that over 40% meet criteria for substance use disorder, more than 10% for major depression or psychosis, and 75% for any personality disorder in similar justice-involved groups.
• According to PLOS One, the final analytical framework organizes influences into desire to seek help, ability to seek help, and help-seeking context to guide multi-level interventions.

The PLOS One study answered how relational and contextual factors influence help-seeking by interviewing 50 people in community contact with the criminal justice system and applying framework analysis, according to PLOS One.

According to PLOS One, interviews were audio-recorded and supported by participant-aided social network software (Network Canvas) and transcribed verbatim for qualitative coding.

According to PLOS One, the research team used a deductive-inductive framework analysis in Nvivo to generate main themes and sub-themes and to produce a matrix linking cases to codes.

According to PLOS One, participants came from two contrasting Scottish local authority areas, LA1 and LA2, interviewed between 1 November 2023 and 31 July 2024, which allowed the authors to surface rural and urban contextual differences.

For qualitative researchers, the PLOS One study shows that explicitly mapping social networks adds explanatory power beyond individual accounts and should be integrated into interview guides, according to PLOS One.

• According to PLOS One, relational influences operated at the level of immediate alters, across networks, and within local cultures; researchers should code for relational processes, not only individual beliefs.
• According to PLOS One, many participants reported unsuccessful help-seeking attempts, so service evaluations should collect process data on access criteria and perceived service responsiveness.
• According to PLOS One, trust and epistemic mistrust were shared across networks; intervention design should consider community-level trust-building and credible local messengers.

The PLOS One study (30 July 2026) demonstrates that help-seeking for mental health and substance use among people in community contact with the criminal justice system is relationally embedded and shaped by desire, ability, and context, according to PLOS One.

Researchers and service designers can use social network-informed frameworks to design multi-level interventions that address shared mistrust, local norms, and access barriers, as the PLOS One authors recommend.

If your team needs to extract quotes, code relational themes, cross-segment by network attributes, or prepare evidence briefs from interview and network data, AI-assisted workflows accelerate that work.

To try this on your data, Try Evidano for free.