Police Attitudes Toward Seeking Professional Mental Health Treatment (original) (raw)
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Police staff and mental health: barriers and recommendations for improving help-seeking
Police Practice and Research
Mental disorders are prevalent among public safety personnel (PSP) yet many people working across public safety professions appear reluctant to seek care for mental health-related concerns. Given the prevalence and impact of compromised mental health on these populations, finding ways to increase use of psychological support for police staff and officers is necessary. We conducted an interview and focus groups (n= 9) with police service members (n= 33) to examine the barriers police officers (n= 25) and communicators (n= 8) report facing when seeking treatment, and their suggestions for improving access to treatment. We identified three main barriers: stigma, worries about confidentiality, and occupationspecific experience with people in the community who present in mental distress. Three suggestions emerged from our participants that may improve current mental health support, namely, ensuring confidentiality, easy-to-use electronic resources, and access to occupation-specific content. We discuss the implications of our results with suggestions for policy and practice.
Law Enforcement Officers’ Barriers to Seeking Mental Health Services: a Scoping Review
Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology, 2021
Law enforcement officers (LEOs) experience stressful and traumatic events more often than the general population. Though these events negatively impact mental health and wellbeing, LEOs experience barriers to seeking psychological therapy and support to address these emotional burdens. This scoping review asks the question "What are the factors preventing law enforcement officers from seeking mental health services?". Eligibility criteria included literature focusing on Canadian and United States LEO access and willingness to participate in mental health interventions. Using PubMed, PsycNet, and Scopus, we found 17 publications on this topic. We charted the data using components of grounded theory and uncovered components of the social cognitive theory's role in accessing services. Overall, LEOs mental health services utilization barriers include negative perceptions and low mental health knowledge, concerns of confidentiality and job consequences, and lack of social support. Interventions can be developed at the environmental, behavioral, and individual levels to address these complex factors preventing LEOs seeking mental health services.
“Let them know it’s okay to get help”: Addressing the Mental Health Needs of Police Officers
Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health Services Research, 2022
The following research used a paper and pencil survey to assess programming for mental health and wellness in 7742 law enforcement agencies throughout the United States. A total of 465 respondents provided data to two open-ended questions to share several types of programs and services that would be beneficial for agencies to support officers who experience job challenges or stress. The qualitative data was analyzed via constant-comparison method by two independent coders who engaged in several techniques to aid in trustworthiness. The resulting themes included officer wellness initiatives, counseling, and the role of the overall agency culture in order to provide access to support and for reducing the stigma for police seeking services for mental health. Implications include the need for program and policy changes within law enforcement agencies.
Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology
Recent Canadian research indicates 44.5% of public safety personnel (PSP) self-report symptoms consistent with at least one type of mental disorder; however, researchers have typically not focused on the mental wellness of civilians working within PSP sectors. Given that the number of civilians working in Canadian law enforcement organizations has doubled since 2003, with more than 30% of all police personnel in Canada being civilians, more research is needed to support this understudied sub-population within law enforcement. The current study used a survey to compare civilian members (n = 80) and sworn (n = 112) police officers working within a law enforcement organization on issues regarding mental disorders, perceived barriers to care and help-seeking behaviours. Results indicate that civilian members self-report a high prevalence of mental disorders and lower resilience compared with police officers in the same organization. Civilians reported similar barriers to accessing menta...
Police Stress and Deleterious Outcomes: Efforts Towards Improving Police Mental Health
Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology
Police officers are subjected, daily, to critical incidents and work-related stressors that negatively impact nearly every aspect of their personal and professional lives. They have resisted openly acknowledging this for fear of being labeled. This research examined the deleterious outcomes on the mental health of police officers, specifically on the correlation between years of service and change in worldviews, perception of others, and the correlation between repeated exposure to critical events and experiencing Post-Traumatic Symptoms. The Cumulative Career Traumatic Stress Questionnaire-Revised (Marshall in J Police Crim Psychol 21(1):62−71, 2006) was administered to 408 current and prior law enforcement officers across the United States. Significant correlations were found between years of service and traumatic events; traumatic events and posttraumatic stress symptoms; and traumatic events and worldview/perception of others. The findings from this study support the literature that perpetual long-term exposure to critical incidents and traumatic events, within the scope of the duties of a law enforcement officer, have negative implications that can impact both their physical and mental wellbeing. These symptoms become exacerbated when the officer perceives that receiving any type of service to address these issues would not be supported by law enforcement hierarchy and could, in fact, lead to the officer being declared unfit for duty. Finally, this research discusses early findings associated with the 2017 Law Enforcement Mental Health and Wellness Act and other proactive measures being implemented within law enforcement agencies who are actively working to remove the stigma associated with mental health in law enforcement.
The Impact of Mental Health Resources on Police Officer Action
Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology, 2020
Concern over interactions between the police and public is more prevalent today than ever before. Specifically, the number of interactions between the police and individuals with mental health disorders (MHD) has increased as the resources from the mental health systems continue to decrease. To better understand these interactions, this paper focuses on police response to mental health calls for service (MHCFS), with specific attention to resources available for officers. Using factorial surveys, police responses from departments across the USA were analyzed using hierarchical linear mixed modeling. The results suggest the availability of mental health resources are significant predictors in the actions taken by police. Implications are clear, police require more mental health-related resources available to them at the scene.
Psychological Applications and Trends 2021
Police officers are some of the first professionals that might have direct interaction with individuals with mental illnesses. Statistics show that from 2017 to 2020 about 3986 individuals in the United States were fatally shot by police officers (Statista, 2021). These reports indicate that at least 25% and as many as 50% of all fatal shootings involved individuals with untreated severe mental illness. The purpose of this pilot study was to test the effectiveness of a five-day psycho-educational mental health awareness training in enhancing law enforcement officers' knowledge about mental illness, and their perceptions towards mentally ill individuals using a pretest-posttest design. The Community Attitudes Towards the Mentally Ill (CAMI) scale was used to measure participants'four mental health attitudinal domains-authoritarianism, benevolence, social restrictiveness, and community mental health ideology. The results indicate that at the completion of the training there was an increase in participants' confidence about their knowledge of the mentally ill individuals and mental illness conditions. However, the results also indicate a slight decrease in participants' mental illness social restrictiveness sentiment after the completion of the training. Additionally, the results also show a correlation between demographic variables and some of the domains. Implications for practice are discussed.
Demographic and cognitive risk factors for police mental disorder symptoms
The Police Journal: Theory, Practice and Principles, 2019
The current study was designed to assess whether cognitive risk factors (i.e. anxiety sensitivity (AS), intolerance of uncertainty (IU)) explained variance in mental disorder symptoms in Canadian police officers beyond variance explained by demographic variables (i.e. sex, marital status, education, years of service). Police participants (708 men; 271 women) completed measures assessing posttraumatic stress disorder, panic disorder, social anxiety disorder, major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, IU and AS. Multivariate analysis of variance demonstrated that only main effects of sex were significant for all symptom variables, except SAD. Hierarchical multiple regressions demonstrated that AS and IU accounted for greater variance than sex on all mental disorder symptom measures, which suggests that cognitive risk factors explain more variance in mental disorder symptoms than sex. Efforts to reduce AS and IU may be beneficial for improving police mental health.
Suspicious minds: Police Attitudes to Mental Ill Health
International Journal of Law and Public Administration, 2018
Policing and mental ill health are inextricably entwined. The police have a role to respond to distressed persons and depending on the circumstances act as mental health practitioners or law enforcement officers. Policing can have an impact on the mental health of those delivering the service. Those working within policing will either experience, work alongside and/or manage colleagues with mental ill health. Therefore it is important that the attitudes of police officers and police staff to mental ill health are established. The research employs the Time to Change Survey to bench mark police attitudes against the general public. Results indicate that police officers/staff hold similar attitudes to the public. However police officers are less supportive of community based interventions. Police data portrays an organisation where mental health related stigma persists, where discussing or seeking help is avoided and having a mental health issue seen as career destroying.