A longitudinal assessment of the road to mental readiness training among municipal police

Peer Support and Crisis-Focused Psychological Interventions Designed to Mitigate Post-Traumatic Stress Injuries among Public Safety and Frontline Healthcare Personnel: A Systematic Review

“…The duration of services or training sessions were commonly not reported ( n = 7), but reported services were administered for 60 min beginning within an hour of the PPTE concluding [ 40 ] or for approximately 90 min within three days of the PPTE concluding [ 31 ]. The training program durations were 90 min [ 35 ], 4 h [ 33 , 37 ], 13 h [ 32 ], or two full-day sessions [ 38 ]. Study duration for RCTs and retrospective cohort studies ranged from one month [ 31 ] to 22 years [ 38 ].…”

“…There were three RCTs [ 32 , 35 , 37 ], each using different outcome measures (mental health, increased use of peer support services, sick leave), but all reporting favorable results. In a prospective cohort study, Carleton et al [ 33 ] reported short-lived, small, but statistically significant improvements in stigma following the Road to Mental Readiness training program, but no statistically significant improvements in mental health. The two retrospective cohort studies [ 34 , 36 ] examined sick days as an outcome measure, while one study [ 38 ] examined suicide rates.…”

“…All of the 14 studies received at least one high risk or unclear rating on the strength of evidence criteria. One study was rated moderate to high quality [ 35 ], nine studies were of moderate to low quality [ 27 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 ], and four studies were of low quality [ 28 , 29 , 30 , 40 ].…”

“…There were 12 out of 14 studies that were rated as high risk ( n = 3) or unclear ( n = 9) regarding adequacy of follow up due to study design (e.g., cross-sectional or retrospective cohort studies), precluding measurements at more than a single point in time and precluding any valid assessment of service effectiveness. The remaining RCTs [ 31 , 37 ] or prospective cohort designs [ 33 ] that did conduct follow-up measures received high risk of bias ratings for failing to provide an analysis of baseline measures and/or demographic variables between participants lost at follow up and those who completed follow-up measures; however, Carleton and colleagues [ 33 ], and Tuckey and Scott [ 31 ] did apply appropriate statistical analyses (i.e., multilevel hierarchical modelling) to account for post-intervention attrition.…”

“…Half of the studies included in the current review did not demonstrate that their sample was representative of the larger population of workers with respect to demographic variables such as sex, average age, or years of service, limiting generalizability of their results. All studies were rated at a low risk of bias regarding selection of the non-exposed cohort, which was either randomly selected from the same population in the case of RCTs [ 31 , 32 , 35 , 37 ], or compared to a sample from the same larger population that did not offer the service in question [ 27 , 34 , 36 , 38 ], or not applicable for single-sample cross-sectional and prospective cohort study designs [ 28 , 29 , 30 , 33 , 39 , 40 ]. There were four studies rated a high risk of bias due to participants self-reporting prior participation in, or exposure to, a given intervention [ 27 , 28 , 30 ] or due to a substantial proportion of the sample (41%) being unaware of the availability of the service prior to taking part in the study [ 40 ].…”