This study is designed to test a mental health assessment and training program developed to strengthen the mental health resilience of public safety personnel (PSP) including public-safety communicators, firefighters, paramedics, and police, and to provide
psychological safety training for their leadership. The PSP groups include a diverse set of professionals whose mental health is at increased risk for posttraumatic stress injuries (PTSIs); however, there has been very little research to determine
effective ways for mitigating PTSIs among PSP. The study is designed to test several variables thought to be associated with mental health risk, resilience, and recovery.
The study will increase our understanding of risk and resiliency related to symptoms of PTSIs and contribute to the development of future training and treatment. Regular monitoring of mental health and activity typically improves ones’ mental health; as such, a key potential benefit for all participants should be improvements to their mental health. Survey and clinical interview results combined with physiological monitoring, should also provide important information allowing participants to identify trends and tailor activities allowing them to access help faster and make better personal choices for their own mental health and well-being. What this means is that recovery times should be faster for those who experience a mental health injury, while the study benefits by obtaining information to create supportive programs for helping others.
Participants will complete initial surveys and clinical interviews at the beginning of the study, then annual surveys and interviews for the next one and a half years. Daily and monthly surveys will also be completed along with the data collected by a seismocardiography device.
The longitudinal PSP PTSI Study extends the RCMP Longitudinal Study (www.rcmpstudy.ca) to diverse PSP, providing a concerted effort to address mental health injuries. The studies are designed to help identify problematic stress very early, provide evidence-based recommendations, and facilitate early access to effective mental health care. The development, analyses, and distribution of peer-reviewed articles from the longitudinal PSP PTSI Study are supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and a generous grant from the Medavie Foundation.
The ideal outcome of the longitudinal PSP PTSI Study will be the development of a world-class evidence-based system to support PSP mental health by reducing risk, increasing resilience, and accelerating access to treatment, all of which can then be made available for all those who serve. Initial results from longitudinal PSP PTSI Study are now available, and results will continue to become available over the next several years.The protocol paper describes the PSP PTSI Study (i.e., design, measures, materials, hypotheses, planned analyses, expected implications, and limitations), which was originally designed to evaluate an evidence-informed, proactive system of mental health assessment and training.
To learn more about the study, explore the links below. To learn about the RCMP Longitudinal PTSD Study:Supported by
