Development and validation of police mental health ability scale

OBJECTIVES: Police officers are generally under long‐term occupational stress. Good mental health ability enables them to better deal with emergencies and enhance their combat effectiveness. We aimed to develop the Police Mental Health Ability Scale (PMHAS) to provide a reference for police selection and ability training. METHODS: Through literature analysis, individual interviews, half‐open and half‐closed questionnaire surveys, and expert consultations, the components of police mental health ability (PMHA) were theoretically constructed. Then, we enrolled 824 in‐service police officers who participated in the training in Chongqing City and Sichuan Province from November 2018 to January 2019 and recovered 767 valid questionnaires (recovery rate, 93.08%). RESULTS: Exploratory factor analysis generated five factors for PMHAS, including cognitive intelligence, emotional catharsis, swift decisiveness, behavioral drive, and reward pursuit, accounting for 58.904% of the variance. Confirmatory factor analysis demonstrated that the model fit well (χ2/df = 1.117, RMSEA = 0.020, GFI = 0.948, CFI = 0.990, IFI = 0.990, TLI = 0.987). The correlation coefficients of factors (r = −0.023 ~ 0.580) were lower than that of each factor and total score (r = 0.477 ~ 0.819). The Cronbach's α coefficients of PMHAS and its factors were 0.606–0.863, and the test–retest reliabilities were 0.602–0.732. CONCLUSION: These results suggest that PMHAS is reliable and valid enough for measuring PMHA, which shows that it is a potentially valuable tool for assessing the mental health ability of police officers.