Introduction: Police employees undertake challenging duties which may adversely impact their health. This study explored the prevalence of and risk factors for probable mental disorders amongst a representative sample of UK police employees. The association between mental illness and alterations in blood pressure was also explored.
Methods: Data were used from the Airwave Health Monitoring Study which was established to monitor the possible physical health impacts of a new communication system on police employees. Data included sociodemographic characteristics, lifestyle habits, depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms and blood pressure. Descriptive statistics were used to explore the prevalence of probable mental disorders and associated factors. Stepwise linear regression was conducted, controlling for confounding variables, to examine associations between mental disorders and blood pressure.
Results: The sample included 40,299 police staff, police constable/sergeants and inspectors or above. Probable depression was most frequently reported (9.8%), followed by anxiety (8.5%) and PTSD (3.9%). Groups at risk for probable mental disorders included police staff, and police employees who reported drinking heavily. Police employees exposed to traumatic incidents in the past six months had a doubling in rates of anxiety or depression and a six-fold increase in PTSD compared to those with no recent trauma exposure. Adjusted logistic regression models did not reveal any significant association between probable mental disorders and systolic blood pressure but significantly elevated diastolic blood pressure (≈1mmHg) was found across mental disorders.
Conclusions: These results show lower rates of probable mental disorders, especially PTSD, than reported in other studies focusing on police employees. Although mental ill health was associated with increased diastolic blood pressure, this was unlikely to be clinically significant. These findings highlight the importance of continued health monitoring of members of the UK police forces, focusing on employees recently exposed to traumatic incidents, heavy drinkers and police staff.