Differences in Mental Health, Help-Seeking, and Barriers to Care between Civilians and Sworn Members Working in Law Enforcement: A Research Note.

Files

s11896-021-09437-y.pdf (615.87 KB)

Date

2021-02-27

Authors

Martin, Krystle
Siddiqui, Alifa
Ricciardelli, Rosemary
Lentz, Liana
Carleton, R. Nicholas

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Springer

Abstract

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 mental health compared with police officers but were less likely to indicate willingness to access supports within their place of employment. Our results support the need for equitable access to mental health resources for civilian staff working within law enforcement organizations.

Description

© The Author(s) 2021. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

Keywords

Policing, Mental health, Civilian, Well-being, Help-seeking

Citation

Martin, K., Siddiqui, A., Ricciardelli, R., Lentz, L., & Carleton, R. N. (2021). Differences in Mental Health, Help-Seeking, and Barriers to Care between Civilians and Sworn Members Working in Law Enforcement: A Research Note. Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11896-021-09437-y

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/10294/15591

Collections

Nicholas Carleton