Primary Care Consultations Among UK Police Officers and Staff

This work reveals a potential unmet need among police employees with adverse mental health and high job strain in primary care. There may be opportunities for the police force to further reduce the stigma of taking the initial step of help-seeking. Objective The current study examined links between adverse mental health, job strain, and likelihood and frequency of primary care consultations among police employees. Methods We conducted secondary data analysis on the Airwave Health Monitoring Study data (n = 33,730). Measures included self-report data on mental health, job strain, job support, and primary care consultations in the past 12 months. Data were analyzed using a zero-inflated Poisson regression framework. Results Findings showed that overall, help seeking was low based on mental health status and job strain. Adverse mental health was associated with more primary care consultations. Police employees with high, active, or passive job strain reported more primary care consultation compared with police employees with low strain. Conclusions Findings suggest that more work to reduce stigma of taking the initial step of help seeking would be beneficial.

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