Mindfulness for the Mental Resilience of Police Officers: A systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Abstract

The current systematic review and meta-analysis focused on the effectiveness of mindfulness interventions for the mental resilience of police officers. The aim was to determine whether mindfulness can contribute to the increase of mental resilience of police officers by reducing stress-related complaints and/or psychological problems. Through an extensive literature search 651 potential relevant studies were found on EBSCO-host, PubMed and Web of Science. After selection, nine studies with at least a pre-post-intervention design were included in the systematic review and meta-analysis. Moderate effects were found for the effect of mindfulness interventions for police officers on reducing burnout, stress, depression and anxiety, and enhancing psychological health between pre- and post-measurements. The effects were less clear between pre- and follow-up measurements. For resilience the effects were not significant. In addition, no moderation effects were found for the type of mindfulness intervention, after how many weeks the follow-up measurement took place and the length of the mindfulness intervention. Mindfulness interventions seem effective for reducing burnout, stress, depression and anxiety, and for improving the psychological health of police officers in the short term. Mindfulness interventions do not seem effective in improving resilience due to problems with operationalization of the construct. Follow-up research is required so mindfulness interventions can be used more effectively within the target group.