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Police Officers’ Ability in Recognizing Relevant Mental Health Conditions

The recognition of certain mental health conditions is important as this requires police officers to communicate and behave in an adjusted manner with affected individuals. The objective of the present study was to test police officers’ knowledge about mental health symptoms as a component of their...

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Autores principales: Wittmann, Linus, Groen, Gunter, Hampel, Petra, Petersen, Ronja, Jörns-Presentati, Astrid
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8484651/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34603148
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.727341
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author Wittmann, Linus
Groen, Gunter
Hampel, Petra
Petersen, Ronja
Jörns-Presentati, Astrid
author_facet Wittmann, Linus
Groen, Gunter
Hampel, Petra
Petersen, Ronja
Jörns-Presentati, Astrid
author_sort Wittmann, Linus
collection PubMed
description The recognition of certain mental health conditions is important as this requires police officers to communicate and behave in an adjusted manner with affected individuals. The objective of the present study was to test police officers’ knowledge about mental health symptoms as a component of their mental health literacy (MHL) and to examine if police officers’ perceived knowledge corresponds with their actual knowledge. A questionnaire was used to assess for MHL representing mental health conditions which occur frequently in police requests (schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, post-traumatic stress disorders, and emotionally unstable personality disorder). Furthermore, the questionnaire assessed the frequency of police requests, the officers’ perceived knowledge regarding mental disorders and their sense of feeling sufficiently trained to deal with these kinds of requests. Eighty-two police officers participated in the study. Police officers’ actual knowledge about mental health conditions did not correspond with their perceived knowledge. Participants revealed a moderately high level of overall knowledge which differed with regard to symptoms of each of the five mental health conditions. The mental status of a paranoid schizophrenia was best identified by the police officers and the majority correctly allocated the symptoms. Post-traumatic stress disorders and manic episodes were only identified by a minority of police offers. Police training geared to prepare for requests involving individuals with mental disorders should expand this limited knowledge transfer and focus on a broader variety of mental health conditions that police officers frequently encounter in requests.
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spelling pubmed-84846512021-10-02 Police Officers’ Ability in Recognizing Relevant Mental Health Conditions Wittmann, Linus Groen, Gunter Hampel, Petra Petersen, Ronja Jörns-Presentati, Astrid Front Psychol Psychology The recognition of certain mental health conditions is important as this requires police officers to communicate and behave in an adjusted manner with affected individuals. The objective of the present study was to test police officers’ knowledge about mental health symptoms as a component of their mental health literacy (MHL) and to examine if police officers’ perceived knowledge corresponds with their actual knowledge. A questionnaire was used to assess for MHL representing mental health conditions which occur frequently in police requests (schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, post-traumatic stress disorders, and emotionally unstable personality disorder). Furthermore, the questionnaire assessed the frequency of police requests, the officers’ perceived knowledge regarding mental disorders and their sense of feeling sufficiently trained to deal with these kinds of requests. Eighty-two police officers participated in the study. Police officers’ actual knowledge about mental health conditions did not correspond with their perceived knowledge. Participants revealed a moderately high level of overall knowledge which differed with regard to symptoms of each of the five mental health conditions. The mental status of a paranoid schizophrenia was best identified by the police officers and the majority correctly allocated the symptoms. Post-traumatic stress disorders and manic episodes were only identified by a minority of police offers. Police training geared to prepare for requests involving individuals with mental disorders should expand this limited knowledge transfer and focus on a broader variety of mental health conditions that police officers frequently encounter in requests. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-09-17 /pmc/articles/PMC8484651/ /pubmed/34603148 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.727341 Text en Copyright © 2021 Wittmann, Groen, Hampel, Petersen and Jörns-Presentati. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Wittmann, Linus
Groen, Gunter
Hampel, Petra
Petersen, Ronja
Jörns-Presentati, Astrid
Police Officers’ Ability in Recognizing Relevant Mental Health Conditions
title Police Officers’ Ability in Recognizing Relevant Mental Health Conditions
title_full Police Officers’ Ability in Recognizing Relevant Mental Health Conditions
title_fullStr Police Officers’ Ability in Recognizing Relevant Mental Health Conditions
title_full_unstemmed Police Officers’ Ability in Recognizing Relevant Mental Health Conditions
title_short Police Officers’ Ability in Recognizing Relevant Mental Health Conditions
title_sort police officers’ ability in recognizing relevant mental health conditions
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8484651/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34603148
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.727341
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