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The prevalence of traumatic symptoms among police officers with different levels of service in the Vancouver Police Department Ram, Jessbir L.
Abstract
Police officers are subject to stressors from traumatic incidents, day to day policing duties as well as organizational sources. This quantitative study examined 195 serving police officers in the Vancouver Police Department to determine what if any relationship existed between any prevalence of traumatic symptoms and their years of experience as police officers. Trauma symptoms were measured through the use of the Trauma Symptom Inventory, which was administered to a randomly selected sample. The sample was divided into seven groups based on years of completed service; recruits, 0<2 years, 2<5 years, 5<10 years, 10<15 years, 15<20 years and 20+ years. While the recruit group showed a spike on the validity scale of Response Level and there were spikes in Anger/Irritability and Depression among the 2<5 years and 20+ groups respectively, most of the significant scores were among the group 10<15 years. This group showed significantly elevated scores in Atypical Responses, Anxious Arousal, Anger/Irritability, Depression, Intrusive Experience, Defensive Avoidance and Impaired Self Reference. In terms of support the respondents indicated through a demographic questionnaire that Family Support was the one most frequently endorsed at the high level, followed by Social Support and then by Peer Support. There was also low levels of endorsement of the Critical Item on the TSI that had to do with hurting others and problems due to alcohol consumption and sexual behaviour. Empirical support and personal experiences of the researcher are provided as explanations for the trends. The number of females in the latter groups was limited due to the demographics of the population. Several recommendations are made for future research as well as recommendations to the Vancouver Police Department to address the findings with their sworn members.
Item Metadata
Title |
The prevalence of traumatic symptoms among police officers with different levels of service in the Vancouver Police Department
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Creator | |
Publisher |
University of British Columbia
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Date Issued |
2001
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Description |
Police officers are subject to stressors from traumatic incidents, day to day policing duties
as well as organizational sources. This quantitative study examined 195 serving police
officers in the Vancouver Police Department to determine what if any relationship existed
between any prevalence of traumatic symptoms and their years of experience as police
officers. Trauma symptoms were measured through the use of the Trauma Symptom
Inventory, which was administered to a randomly selected sample. The sample was
divided into seven groups based on years of completed service; recruits, 0<2 years, 2<5
years, 5<10 years, 10<15 years, 15<20 years and 20+ years. While the recruit group
showed a spike on the validity scale of Response Level and there were spikes in
Anger/Irritability and Depression among the 2<5 years and 20+ groups respectively, most
of the significant scores were among the group 10<15 years. This group showed
significantly elevated scores in Atypical Responses, Anxious Arousal, Anger/Irritability,
Depression, Intrusive Experience, Defensive Avoidance and Impaired Self Reference. In
terms of support the respondents indicated through a demographic questionnaire that
Family Support was the one most frequently endorsed at the high level, followed by
Social Support and then by Peer Support. There was also low levels of endorsement of
the Critical Item on the TSI that had to do with hurting others and problems due to
alcohol consumption and sexual behaviour. Empirical support and personal experiences
of the researcher are provided as explanations for the trends. The number of females in
the latter groups was limited due to the demographics of the population. Several
recommendations are made for future research as well as recommendations to the
Vancouver Police Department to address the findings with their sworn members.
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Extent |
8076433 bytes
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Genre | |
Type | |
File Format |
application/pdf
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Language |
eng
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Date Available |
2009-09-14
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Provider |
Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
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Rights |
For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use.
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DOI |
10.14288/1.0054520
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URI | |
Degree | |
Program | |
Affiliation | |
Degree Grantor |
University of British Columbia
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Graduation Date |
2001-05
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Campus | |
Scholarly Level |
Graduate
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Aggregated Source Repository |
DSpace
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Item Media
Item Citations and Data
Rights
For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use.