Primary Care Consultations Among UK Police Officers and Staff: Links With Adverse Mental Health and Job Strain.

Abstract

The current study examined links between adverse mental health, job strain, and likelihood and frequency of primary care consultations among police employees. We conducted secondary data analysis on the Airwave Health Monitoring Study data ( n = 33,730). Measures included self-report data on mental health, job strain, job support, and primary care consultations in the past 12 months. Data were analyzed using a zero-inflated Poisson regression framework. Findings showed that overall, help seeking was low based on mental health status and job strain. Adverse mental health was associated with more primary care consultations. Police employees with high, active, or passive job strain reported more primary care consultation compared with police employees with low strain. Findings suggest that more work to reduce stigma of taking the initial step of help seeking would be beneficial.