A review of workplace mental health interventions and their implementation in public safety organizations.

OBJECTIVE: Workplace mental health is relevant to public safety organizations due to the exposure that many public safety personnel (PSP) have to psychological trauma in the course of their daily work. While the importance of attending to PSP mental health has been established, the implementation of workplace mental health interventions is not as well understood. This scoping review describes workplace mental health interventions and their implementation in public safety organizations. METHODS: English published primary studies with any publication date up to July 3, 2020 were considered. JBI methodology and the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews was followed. RESULTS: 89 citations met inclusion criteria out of the 62,299 found. Articles and reports found were largely published within the last decade, most frequently from Western nations, and most often applied to police, followed by firefighters. The focus of interventions was commonly stress management and resilience, and a frequent implementation strategy was multi-session group training. Comprehensive quality improvement initiatives, a focus on supervisors and managers, and interventions across primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention, were infrequent. CONCLUSION: Public safety organizations are frequently reporting on stress management and resilience interventions for police and firefighters, implemented through multi-session group training. A focus across a range of PSP, including paramedics, corrections officers, and emergency dispatchers, using implementation strategies beyond group training, is suggested. This area of research is currently expanding, with many studies published within the past decade; ongoing evaluation of the quality of interventions and implementation strategies is recommended.

Workplace mental health implementation strategies in public safety organizations: a scoping review protocol.

OBJECTIVE: This scoping review aims to map workplace mental health implementation strategies in public safety organizations and describe the characteristics, participants, and contexts of these strategies. INTRODUCTION: Workplace mental health implementation strategies are relevant to public safety organizations due to the exposure that many public safety personnel, such as firefighters, paramedics, and police officers, have to psychological trauma in the course of their daily work. While the importance of attending to public safety personnel's mental health has been established, workplace mental health implementation strategies have historically varied in public safety organizations. INCLUSION CRITERIA: This scoping review will address workplace mental health implementation strategies used in public safety organizations. It will exclude studies that do not focus on workplace mental health, do not report on the implementation strategies used, or do not take place in a public safety context. METHODS: Primary studies published in English with any publication date up to the present will be considered. JBI methodology and the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) will be followed. The search will be carried out in five databases and reference lists will also be searched for additional studies. Duplicates will be removed, and two independent reviewers will screen the titles, abstracts, and full text of the selected studies. Data collection will be performed using a tool developed by the researchers, based on JBI's model instrument for extracting study details, characteristics, and results. A summary of the results will be presented in diagrams, narratives, and tables.