Trauma, Critical Incidents, Organizational and Operational Stressors: The Relationship Between Harms and Psychological Outcomes for Police

Abstract

Early psychological health studies in policing often focused on trauma and critical incidents (CIs). More recent research builds a compelling argument that significant causes of psychological harm stems from other operational and organizational factors. The current study uses survey data from a large sample of Australian police (N = 1763), producing strength metrics derived from mediated regression analyses. The relationships between stressors (trauma and CIs, operational and organizational) and psychological health (psychological distress and burnout) were studied. For the relationship between stress and psychological distress, compared to trauma stress, the relationship with organizational stress was three times stronger and the relationship with operational stress was two and half times stronger. No direct relationship between trauma stress and burnout was found. It was fully explained by organizational and operational stress. The findings suggest police leaders must consider the direct and combined impacts of different stressors on the psychological health of their staff.