Police Officers Suffering from PTSD Literature Review

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Traumatic Stress While on Duty and PTSD

Literature Review

There is some connection between traumatic stress for officers on duty and the development of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, as Chopko, Palmieri and Adams (2018) show in their study of nearly 200 law enforcement officers. While the connection appears evident, the nature of the onset of symptoms differs, as does the manner in which positive growth following the onset of PTSD occurs. This should not be surprising as Chopko and Schwartz (2012) illustrate in an earlier study that the correlation of career traumatization and symptomatology among active duty officers is diverse and dependent upon a number variables, such as personal relationships and the level of threat faced while on the job. What exactly defines a threat on the job, moreover, is also different according to the perspective of the individual officer. Andersen and Papazoglou (2014) demonstrate that “interactions with a member of a different cultural group is often defined by threat and anxiety” (p. 182). In a multicultural society, cross-group threats may be more common for some officers than for others—but individual officers may also view some environments as more threatening than others might. Perception, background, experience, culture, and ethnicity can all play a part in the extent to which a threat is felt. This reason might help to explain why Weiss, Brunet, Best et al. (2010) only found a modest relationship between stressful or traumatic incidents and PTSD symptoms in officers.

Indications of a relationship between PTSD and the traumatized stress of officers have been seen in police details. Indeed, one of the greatest threats facing police is the effect of PTSD, as it can cause officers to lose the ability to interact appropriately with colleagues, peers, family and community members (Andersen & Papazoglou, 2014; Chopko et al., 2018). PTSD typically arises following a traumatic experience and the main symptoms appear when the individual is faced with stress related to that experience in its wake (Chopko and Schwartz, 2012; Plat, Westerveld, Hutter et al., 2013). The stress can be substantially debilitating and can impair an officer from performing the duties related to law enforcement, and that is why officers who routinely or frequently encounter traumatic experiences the PTSD rates can be high (Plat et al., 2013).

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However, there is no easy way of evaluating what types of incidents pose a traumatic risk for officers. Car wrecks, murders, deaths, rapes, drug crime, violent assault—all of these and none of these might pose a risk to certain officers; the literature on what causes PTSD is limited.

Nonetheless, the effects of PTSD and the hazards of policing on police-community relations can be that officers are reluctant to engage with the public and the public is reluctant to engage with officers. As a result police-community relations become strained as both sides fail to connect with one another. Police officers can struggle to cope with the stress they are experiencing and administrators can struggle to identify the causes of the symptoms (Chopko et al., 2018). Being aware of how police officers can be impacted negatively while on duty by stressful environments in which they can undergo a trauma is important for being able to know how to treat officers in the aftermath of such experiences. Cone, Li, Kornblith et al. (2015) show that a tentative link exists between traumatic experiences and the onset of PTSD in police officers: officers who experience a catastrophic incident while on duty are at a greater risk of having PTSD, according to their study of officers who assisted in the tragedy of 9/11 in New York City. The negative effects that they experienced in the wake of that catastrophe stemmed from the development of PTSD symptoms. While 9/11 surely would meet anyone’s criteria for a catastrophe, other incidents and experiences may occur for officers in the line of duty that are not quite as sensationally catastrophic as that one, but they still might serve as an example of catastrophe. Understanding this, however, requires more information on the subject.

What is certain from a review of the literature is that the outcome for police-community relations breakdown as a result of hazards like PTSD is that people may choose to avoid law enforcement. The problem with this is that it can compound an already sensitive situation and lead to officers experiencing more strain and stress on top of the PTSD symptoms they are already dealing with (Chopko et al., 2018). Martin and Martin (2017) point out that police suffering from PTSD can.....

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