Resilience of public and private security providers: a state-of-the-art literature review

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the empirical literature on the resilience of public police officers and private security guards in stressful situations involving threats, violence, accidents or death. This paper studies the definitions of resilience used in these professions, identifies trends in applied research methods and examines the main topics addressed in previous research. Design/methodology/approach A scoping review was carried out, with searches in Web of Science and Google Scholar, as well as a secondary manual screening in Dutch academic journals. Based on this review, 33 empirical studies were included in the current paper. Findings First, it was revealed that a clear-cut definition of resilience applied to public police and private security guards is currently lacking. Second, predominantly quantitative designs were found to be used in the selected studies. Third, the 33 empirical studies provided insights on four main topics: demographic factors, personal characteristics, interpersonal aspects and resilience training programs. Remarkably, this scoping review did not find any empirical research on the resilience of private security guards. Originality/value This study systematically integrates the findings of empirical research on the resilience of security providers to stressful situations. The documentation of research activity, gaps and inconsistencies in the literature offer direction for future research in this relatively new field of study.