Elizabeth Smailes, PhD, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, 600 West 168th Street, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10032, Jay E. Cross, PhD, Mailman School of Public Health, Department of Sociomedical Sciences, Columbia University, Center for Applied Public Health, 722 West 168th Street, New York, NY 11553, 212-305-7023, jec9@columbia.edu, and Robyn R.M. Gershon, MHS DrPH, Sociomedical Sciences, Columbia University, Mailman School of Public Health, 600 west 168th st, 4th floor, New York, NY 10032.

Police officers may be referred for mental health services following an extraordinary critical incident, such as being shot. While critical incidents are one avenue for making a mental health referral, there may be other times a referral is also indicated. Psychosomatic complaints such as nausea, chest pains, and headaches are also associated with poor mental health, and may be more likely to be reported and discussed than other mental health problems. For a variety of reasons officers may be reluctant to admit to depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation. Psychosomatic problems may provide an early indication of mental health problems and an avenue for intervention. We explored this issue in a study of 1150 sworn police officers from a North Eastern Police Department. Questionnaire data were collected on critical incidents, psychosomatic problems, depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, suicide ideation and alcohol consumption. Police critical incidents included injury (assaulted by a suspect or fellow officer, needle stick injury), injury to others (shot someone, made a violent arrest, assaulted another officer), or knowing others who had been injured (attended a police funeral, knew a victim). Results indicate that under multivariate control, critical incidents (assaulted by a suspect and made a violent arrest), and psychosomatic complaints (headaches and chronic insomnia) were associated with increased depressive, anxiety, and suicide ideation symptoms and alcohol use. Given that psychosomatic complaints are not often seen as mental health problems, they may be discussed more openly among police officers and thus provide an indication that mental health intervention is needed.

Learning Objectives:

• The learner will be able to identify and discuss the prevalence of critical incidents and psychosomatic problems among police officers.
• The learner will be knowledgeable about the independent associations between critical incidents, psychosomatic problems and mental health.
• The learner will be able to describe at least two ways in which awareness of psychosomatic problems may provide an avenue for early interventions.

Keywords: Workplace Stressors, Mental Health

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.