Australian police self-perception of their mental health and a review of their access to police mental health support
Abstract
The purpose of this study is to discover how many general duty (GD) police have self-identified having issues with their mental health and discover how many police are aware of all the police support services on offer and whether they have used these services to enhance their mental health. The objective of this study is to also discover if there are any barriers to why police are not accessing the police mental health support services. The participants of this project included all constables and senior constables, working in GD positions within this state of Australia, at a local area command The state where the study was conducted is not being named and so the term Australian police force is being used instead. The methodology that was utilised for this research was a qualitative study as qualitative surveys were conducted with the GD police. The methodology included placing a survey in the work pigeonholes of all current constable and senior constable GD staff that included 101 working at this local area command. The major findings included, of the sixty-six constable and senior constables in GDs who undertook the survey, half (50%) identified having difficulties with their mental health. Regarding awareness of all the police support services, significantly none of the officers were aware of all the help available. Findings of access to the police support services was 67% of the GD police who self-identified having issues with their mental health reported accessing a police mental health support service. Regarding barriers preventing police accessing the police support services, over one third (36%) of them had at least one barrier preventing them from accessing a police support service.
The benefit of this research project is to demonstrate the growing awareness of Australia police force member’s mental health issues and emphasise the importance of good mental health of police officers worldwide.
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