A job associated with public security and criminal justice often involves substantial risk to personnel’s mental health. According to a survey by Carleton et al. (2020), roughly 71% of police personnel respondents have experienced more than ten psychologically traumatic events in their practice. In addition, almost half of the respondents screened positive for mental health disorders, while a quarter reported either suicidal ideation, planning, or attempts (Carleton et al., 2020). There is substantial evidence that police officers experience various potentially dangerous depressive and anxiety symptoms. Thus, psychological support is imperative to aid officers in maintaining psychological well-being and performing their duties efficiently. In this context, numerous mental health training program categories exist, such as debriefing, peer support, critical incident stress management (CISM), Road to Mental Readiness, psychoeducation, mental health first aid, and many others (Carleton et al., 2020). However, existing research on their categorization and effectiveness is limited, which are the issues chosen for the current paper.
Literature Review
In current criminal justice practice, focusing solely on the law, arrest and control skills, and defensive tactics in officer training is insufficient. Consequently, the article by Blumberg et al. (2019) addresses how vital it is to prepare police officers for their future duty mentally as well. Unfortunately, despite providing solid coverage of skills addressed by psychological interventions, the article does not explicitly mention their proportional contribution to mental health resilience.
The study by Carleton et al. (2020) assessed police officers’ perceptions of access to professional and non-professional support and associations between mental health and training. Despite most participants reporting access to support, the majority would first access a spouse, while many would access professional support only as a last resort. In this context, the research by Velazquez and Hernandez (2019) was conducted to identify police officers’ mental health in relation to traumas and the stigma behind seeking professional treatment. Additionally, the article by Papazoglou and Tuttle (2018) studied several practice-based actions that clinicians may utilize to understand police culture and develop respective clinical support for officers suffering from work-related stress and trauma. The mentioned studies contain a rich overview of possible mental health interventions but, unfortunately, do not compare them in terms of efficiency.
Finally, the study by Chitra and Karunanidhi (2021) aimed to determine the efficiency of a resilience-training program by evaluating its effect on female officers’ job satisfaction, occupational stress, and psychological well-being. The results demonstrated that resilience training was practical, and the qualitative feedback was positive, supporting the empirical evidence for the resilience training program’s effectiveness. However, the study’s main weak point is the generalizability of the chosen sample both within and outside the gender criterium.
Research Question
Based on the mentioned literature, one might perceive several common features. Firstly, mental health interventions vary in terms of their provider and scope. Secondly, these interventions were assessed in terms of perceived appealability and qualitative characteristics rather than in terms of comparable efficiency. Therefore, the current research will fill the gap of generalizing and comparing mental health interventions by defining the most effective interventions applicable to the most significant number of police officers.
Data and Methods
To answer the stated question, this research will conduct a systematic review of existing literature specifically dedicated to the performance of mental health interventions for the police workforce. Given that the results’ validity and statistical significance are in direct relationship with the number of relevant studies used for the review, there is a need for a thorough and expansive search. Thus, the initial keywords to locate and identify literature concerning healthcare interventions would be mental health support, clinical intervention, mental health promotion, psychological resilience, and psychological well-being. Then, the subsequent search results should be additionally filtered by police mental health, police trauma, police stress, and police resilience to ensure that the studies are related to the topic of criminal justice. Finally, the located healthcare interventions will be compared in the framework of Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER). This research can identify what clinical and public health interventions perform best in improving health (Harvard School of Public Health, n.d.). In this context, interventions will be compared based on health-related outcomes.
Results and Discussion
The expected outcome of this study is a generalized classification of existing mental health interventions available for the police workforce and their assessment in terms of efficiency. Such a dualistic approach ensures the research’s value for psychology scholars and criminal justice policy and practice. Firstly, it will list the existing interventions regardless of their scope in one place. Secondly, it will provide their characteristics and performance evaluation. This way, both sides will receive information regarding current approaches’ strengths and weaknesses, allowing them to adjust their strategy accordingly. This research has two potential limitations: available resources and possible gaps in underrepresented interventions. The former mainly concerns the number of researchers involved and the time framework – the longer the research lasts, and the more people work on it, the more significant would be the systematic review. Regarding the latter, the uncovered gaps would present an opportunity for future research.
References
Blumberg, D. M., Schlosser, M. D., Papazoglou, K., Creighton, S., & Kaye, C. C. (2019). New directions in police academy training: A call to action. International journal of environmental research and public health, 16(24), 4941. Web.
Carleton, R. N., Afifi, T. O., Turner, S., Taillieu, T., Vaughan, A. D., Anderson, G. S., & Camp, R. D. (2020). Mental health training, attitudes toward support, and screening positive for mental disorders. Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, 49(1), 55-73. Web.
Chitra, T., & Karunanidhi, S. (2021). The impact of resilience training on occupational stress, resilience, job satisfaction, and psychological well-being of female police officers. Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology, 36(1), 8-23. Web.
Harvard School of Public Health. (n.d.). Comparative ffectiveness research initiative. Web.
Papazoglou, K., & Tuttle, B. M. (2018). Fighting police trauma: Practical approaches to addressing psychological needs of officers. Sage open, 8(3). Web.
Velazquez, E., & Hernandez, M. (2019). Effects of police officer exposure to traumatic experiences and recognizing the stigma associated with police officer mental health: A state-of-the-art review. Policing (Bradford), 42(4), 711-724. Web.