Affiliation:
1. Fachbereich Psychologie, Hochschule der Akademie der Polizei Hamburg,
Hamburg, Germany
Abstract
Abstract
Background As part of their career, police officers are faced with
traumatic events on a regular basis and are at a higher risk of developing
post-traumatic-stress disorder (PTSD) compared to the general population. The
aim of this study was to examine if and how many early career police officers
had already experienced potentially traumatizing situations and how many met
either subsyndromal or complete PTSD criteria. A further subject of interest was
if the officers knew the concept of psychosocial emergency care for first
responders (PSNV-E) and if such support was made use of.
Method Early career police officers (n=221) were assessed via an
online survey about their posttraumatic stress symptoms.
Results More than half of the participants (n=121) reported having
experienced at least one traumatic deployment. PTSD prevalence in this group was
at 1.7%, an additional 14.9% showed partial PTSD. One-fifth did not know about
the PSNV-E concept.
Conclusion Police officers are confronted with a range of extremely
stressful events early in their career leading to first symptoms of PTSD in some
of them. Early prevention strategies as well as the identification of those
affected for secondary prevention is of very high relevance for long-term mental
health.