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Rescuers Need To Be Rescued: Multi-pronged Strategies to Ensure Mental Well-Being Among Police Personnel

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Abstract

Police personnel experiences a variety of mental health issues, including depression, anxiety, stress, suicidal thought, and suicide, to mention a few. The job of police has historically been a high-stress profession. There are a number of intervention measures that have been promoted through research to mitigate the negative impact of these difficulties. By examining multi-pronged solutions, such as organisational and individual-level interventions to cope, the study seeks to comprehend and add a new dimension to it. The n = 371 police personnel in the survey design were mostly constables. The findings are consistent with the studies of similar nature conducted in the past. The uniqueness of this study lies in the combination of constructs including mindfulness along with multi-pronged strategies to address mental health issues of the police personnel in India. The findings demonstrated that stress, anxiety, and burnout among police personnel can be decreased by organisational and individual-level interventions such as supportive leadership, mindfulness, and experiential acceptance as contrasted to experiential avoidance. The results are consistent with studies of a similar nature conducted in the past. To address the mental health challenges of the Indian police force, this study was unique in that it used mindfulness as a framework for the police personnel in addition to other multi-pronged strategies, including interventions at the individual and organisational levels.

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Gupta, V., Upadhyay, S.K. & Malik, C. Rescuers Need To Be Rescued: Multi-pronged Strategies to Ensure Mental Well-Being Among Police Personnel. J Police Crim Psych 38, 643–665 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11896-023-09590-6

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