A landmark Australian study has found the vast majority of people who are sexually abused as children do not become offenders themselves.

But the study finds that overall they are five times more likely than other members of the population to be charged with some sort of offence.

The researchers say the findings suggest the victims of childhood sexual abuse need more help to recover, especially during their teenage years.

The study looked at more than 2,500 cases of child sexual abuse in Victoria between 1964 and 1995.

The names and birthdates of the victims were then cross-matched with crime databases.

Author, Dr Margaret Cuttajar, is a clinical and forensic psychologist and researcher at Monash University.

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She says the study is one of the largest of its kind in the world and has huge significance.

"Whilst the majority of child sexual abuse victims don't go on to commit an offence, so it's 77 per cent in this case when we compare it to the general population, we found that being a victim of child sexual abuse does increase the risk for committing offence," she said.

The study did not examine why some people who were abused as children went on to commit crimes themselves.

But Dr Cuttajar has some theories.

"One of the main questions is do the abused become the abuser? And what we found was that sexual offending was largely attributed to adolescent males," she said.

"So what we theorise adolescence is a period of psycho-sexual development, a pretty critical period where there is that heightened sexual arousal and it could be paired with cognitive distortions relating to sexual relations and even the aberrant sexual urges.

"It might be something like being attracted to a child or what the general population would consider a deviant sexual interest.

"This might come out of their own type of sexual offending where they are mirroring that later in life where they have the belief systems that might suggest that this is normal."

Dr Cuttajar says the study's findings suggest that victims of childhood sexual abuse need more help from psychologists, psychiatrists and social workers, especially during adolescence.

"Not just focusing on the trauma of the sexual abuse but also teaching them about positive sexuality," she said.

"Just in terms of developing the healthier ideas of what a sexual relationship is and respect."

The study has been published on the website of the Australian Institute of Criminology.