Prevalance of PTSD among police/first responders and why critical incident debriefings are beneficial to reduce operational strees injuries

Prevalence of PTSD Among Police/First Responders and Why Critical Incident Debriefings are Beneficial to Reduce Operational Stress Injuries Student's Name Institutional Affiliation Course Code and Title Professor's Name Submission Date During crises and emergencies, frontline officers are exposed to dangerous events that affect them on-site, after moving from the site, or both. Post-traumatic stress disorder is an operational injury that is more prevalent among the police force and other first response workers, and it has proven to be a complex mental health issue that affects the officer afterward. Critical stress debriefings are a way of addressing this mental health condition. This paper will discuss the prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder and the use of essential debriefings of the incidents to address this issue among the police force and other first-response workers. PTSD Among Police/First Responders Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) occurs when a person exposed to a traumatic event experiences symptoms such as distressing thoughts of the occurrence, physiological and emotional challenges, and avoiding reminders of that day. Police officers and first responders like firefighters are susceptible to multiple traumatic happenings every year in addition to the risky nature of their occupations (Violanti, 2018). Road traffic accidents, suicides, murders, seeing abused children and dead bodies, involvement in shootings, and other horrific incidents traumatize their visual, olfactory, and tactile sensations for many years of service. The COVID-19 pandemic was a period when police officers and responders were exposed to an increased number of traumatic events due to the increase in domestic violence and illegal activities. PTSD manifests via a variety of symptoms like recurrent memories of the event, avoiding contexts or links associated with the traumatic event, bad cognitive symptoms, and hyperarousal symptoms like lack of concentration in daily activities and sleeping difficulties. These symptoms cause poor quality of life, cardio-respiratory issues, and an increased frequency and severity of pain (Isabirye et al., 2022). Even though it is a natural occurrence for memories of the event to linger in an individual for a few days, persistence for more than four weeks is a signal of developing PTSD. Prevalence of PTSD Research studies on PTSD are gaining priority among scholars, research institutions, military agencies, police departments, and governments. Wagner et al. (2020) found that the prevalence of PTSD in police in Canada varied from 0% to 44% among the studies selected in the systematic review. They also found that individual differences among the police officers, like years of service and age, had a weak impact on the prevalence of PTSD. Incident-specific factors like the severity of exposure were consistently and strongly associated with the increasing prevalence of PTSD. In another study in Africa, Isabirye et al. (2022) found a prevalence value of 7.4% in Uganda police using the Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale of DSM-5, and 62.5% of chosen participants had sub-threshold PTSD (they did not meet the criteria selected but had at least one symptom of PTSD). Hartley et al. (2013) did a study on police officers and found that the recency of meeting assault victims had an increased PTSD score in men more than women, while an increased frequency of traumatic events caused higher PTSD scores in women more than men. Mental health challenges have been reported on cadets in Canada, with PTSD, major depressive disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder being the most common (Carleton, 2019). This calls for more emphasis on securing the mental health of frontline officers worldwide. Accordingly, PTSD is a growing mental health condition that must be given necessary attention by the health sector worldwide. Even though the police and first responders are at a higher risk of getting this mental health condition, there are victims of traumatic events within society who have opted to remain silent intentionally or due to a lack of awareness. Rape victims, citizens of a politically unstable nation, refugees, victims of domestic violence, and war victims are among the people battling PTSD daily. More than half of the citizens of the United States have been exposed to a severe stressor in their lives (Hartley et al., 2013). The fate of Oklahoma City bombing responders and rescue operators and firefigh...