Resilience among police officers:A critical systematic review of used concepts, measures, and predictive values of resilience

Resilience, hardiness, and psychological capital are considered to be important capacities for police officers to cope with and adapt to challenging stressful and potentially traumatic situations. Despite their growing popularity, a systematic review assessing used concepts and instruments for these capacities and synthesizing the results of studies on the predictive values of resilience, hardiness, and psychological capital among police officers is absent. The aim of the present study is to fill this gap of scientific knowledge, and for this purpose, a systematic literature search was conducted using PsycInfo, Pubmed, and Web of Science. We identified 17 cross-sectional and 5 longitudinal studies. Results showed that resilience, hardiness, and psychological capital were studied mostly in relation to physical and mental health variables. No study focused on officers’ professional functioning. In both cross-sectional and longitudinal studies, associations with health variables were very weak to moderate, while cross-sectional studies mostly yielded stronger associations than longitudinal associations. In sum, we found no empirical support for the growing popularity

Symptom attribution and presentation in general practice after an extreme life event

Background. A serious life event is likely to shape attributions relating to symptoms experienced afterwards. While they may play an important role in prognosis and seeking care, such perceptions have hardly been studied among survivors of a disaster. Objective. To investigate the association between self-reported health problems that have been attributed to an extreme life event and the symptoms presented to GPs. Methods. A two-wave longitudinal survey (2–3 weeks and 18 months) among survivors of a fireworks disaster was combined with a continuous morbidity surveillance in general practice. Symptoms attributed to the disaster reported in an open-ended question in the two waves were analysed using descriptive statistics. Differences in presented symptoms over time were analysed using logistic multilevel analysis. Results. More than half of the respondents reported health problems, which were, in their opinion, related to the disaster. Psychological problems were most frequently reported in association with the disaster, and in contrast to physical attributed symptoms, presentation of these problems in general practice decreased over time. In the total sample, musculoskeletal symptoms were less frequently presented in the longer term. Survivors who attributed symptoms to the disaster at both waves or after 18 months only most often presented such symptoms to the GP. Conclusion. Survivors attributed psychological problems and physical symptoms to the disaster at short-term and midterm post-disaster. Most of these survivors presented such symptoms to the GP. Attribution of symptoms to an extreme life event such as a disaster may therefore require special attention from the GP. (aut. ref

Provision of social support by mayors in times of crisis: a cross-sectional study among Dutch mayors

Security and Global Affair

Politiestress:feiten en mythes

Politieagenten worden veelvuldig blootgesteld aan allerhande ingrijpende situaties. Stressklachten worden daaraan toegeschreven. Maar is dat juist? Wat is er bekend aan onderzoek naar de invloed van schokkende gebeurtenissen op stressklachten? En hoe stressvol is het politievak in verhouding tot andere beroepen? Een verslag van diverse studies uit binnen- en buitenland met opvallende conclusies