Abstract
First responders and other public safety personnel (PSP) experience elevated rates of mental disorders and face unique barriers to care. Internet-delivered cognitive behavioural therapy (ICBT) is an effective and accessible treatment that has demonstrated good treatment outcomes when tailored specifically for PSP. However, little is known about how PSP come to seek ICBT. A deeper understanding of why PSP seek ICBT can inform efforts to tailor and disseminate ICBT and other treatments to PSP. The present study was designed to (1) explore the demographic and clinical characteristics, motivations, and past treatments of PSP seeking ICBT, (2) learn how PSP first learned about ICBT, and (3) understand how PSP perceive ICBT. To address these objectives, we examined responses to online screening questionnaires among PSP (N = 259) who signed up for an ICBT program tailored for PSP. The results indicate that most of our sample experienced clinically significant symptoms of multiple mental disorders, had received prior mental disorder diagnoses and treatments, heard about ICBT from a work-related source, reported positive perceptions of ICBT, and sought ICBT to learn skills to manage their own symptoms of mental disorders. The insights gleaned through this study have important implications for ICBT researchers and others involved in the development, delivery, evaluation, and funding of mental healthcare services for PSP.
Highlights
Public safety personnel (PSP) include border services officers, public safety communications officials, correctional workers, dispatch/communication workers, career and volunteer firefighters, Indigenous emergency managers, operational intelligence personnel, paramedics, police, search and rescue personnel, and others [1]
Internet-delivered cognitive behavioural therapy (ICBT) services tailored for public safety personnel (PSP) in Canada; ICBT was freely available to the general population in Saskatchewan through the Online Therapy Unit [36]
There were minimal differences between PSP who enrolled in an ICBT course and those who did not, so we present data for the combined sample throughout this paper
Summary
Public safety personnel (PSP) include border services officers, public safety communications officials, correctional workers, dispatch/communication workers, career and volunteer firefighters, Indigenous emergency managers, operational intelligence personnel, paramedics, police (municipal, provincial, and federal), search and rescue personnel, and others [1]. PSP are frequently exposed to potentially psychologically traumatic events, and such exposures predict symptoms of various mental disorders [2,3]. A large-scale national survey showed that 44.5% of Canadian PSP reported clinically significant symptoms of at least one mental disorder [4]. There is evidence of high rates of mental health problems among PSP in other countries, including Australia [5], Brazil [6], the Netherlands [7,8], Taiwan [9], and the United States [10,11]. Despite recent efforts at reducing mental health stigma among PSP groups PSP report unique barriers to accessing mental healthcare, such as concerns about stigma and workplace repercussions for seeking help and distrust of, or discomfort with, mental healthcare providers [12,13,14].
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