ABSTRACT

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 occupation-specific 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.

摘要

精神障碍在公共安全人员 (PSP) 中普遍存在，但许多从事公共安全专业工作的人似乎不愿就与心理健康相关的问题寻求治疗。鉴于精神健康受损对这些人群的普遍性和影响，有必要寻找方法来增加对警察工作人员和警官的心理支持的使用。我们与警察服务人员 ( n = 33)进行了访谈和焦点小组 ( n = 9)，以检查警察 ( n = 25) 和沟通者 ( n= 8) 报告在寻求治疗时面临的问题，以及他们对改善获得治疗的建议。我们确定了三个主要障碍：耻辱感、对保密性的担忧以及与社区中存在精神困扰的人的职业特定经验。我们的参与者提出了三个可以改善当前心理健康支持的建议，即确保机密性、易于使用的电子资源和访问特定职业内容。我们讨论了我们的结果的影响以及对政策和实践的建议。