Goodale announces mental health study
University awarded $8.9M contract for research to identify causes of trauma
Cadets leave the RCMP’s Training Academy, Depot Division healthy and eager to take on the challenges of policing — but responding to deadly crashes, suicides and other traumas takes a deadly toll over time.
“Since 2006, we’ve had about 40 suicides of RCMP members, serving and retired,” said Assistant Commissioner Stephen White, acting chief of human resources officer with the force.
“In many communities across Canada, our RCMP members are the primary responders,” White said. “They’re called upon to respond to criminal acts, traffic collisions, suicides, fires, medical emergencies, search and rescue efforts and much more.”
Policing can and does take a deep emotional and physical toll, said Ralph Goodale, minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness.
“It is probably the most demanding form of public service,” he said. “RCMP officers are exposed to much higher rates of traumatic events than all of the rest of us combined, except for other first responders.”
Consequently, they’re more likely to experience operational stress injuries (OSI) — a range of issues that include anxiety disorders, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.
“Often we don’t recognize the symptoms for what they are,” Goodale said. “We wave them off as part of the job, and that has to change.”
He was at Depot on Friday to announce that an $8.9-million contract has been awarded to the University of Regina to cover the first three years of a research study that will look at the impact of stress on RCMP officers.
Dr. Nick Carleton, psychology professor and scientific director of the Canadian Institute for Public Safety Research and Treatment at the University of Regina, will lead a multidisciplinary research team of experts from across Canada and the United States.
They will work to identify the factors that lead to psychological trauma and stress-related disorders, including post-traumatic stress.
Carleton estimates about 1,370 cadets and officers will participate in the longitudinal study.
“We’re going to be assessing participants before they begin their training, or at the very beginning of their training, as they conclude their training and then we’re going to assess them repeatedly thereafter,” he said.
Currently, mental health data is based entirely on self-reporting.
“That is not bad data, but it is only one piece of the puzzle,” Carleton said. “What we’re going to be doing is engaging in what we call diagnostic-level interview. We will be recording biophysiological data, we’ll be recording the self-report data and we’re going to be doing it at a size and scope, that to my knowledge, is entirely unprecedented.”
The results will be tailored mental health support for individuals.
Participation will be voluntary, and all data will be given anonymously to protect the privacy of the RCMP member.
Currently, the force’s mental health resources include a peer-topeer program, suicide prevention training across the organization, debriefings with psychologists after critical incidents and mental health training for the force’s 30,000 employees, White said.
Despite measures to improve the force’s psychological health, 41.7 per cent of long-term disability claims for RCMP regular members no longer with the force — on medical discharge for example — were related to mental health concerns.
“This longitudinal study will complement everything else that we’re doing,” White said.
Goodale hopes the study will reduce the risk of tragedies like suicides, spousal violence and the stigma that continues to surround mental health issues of all types.
The findings will help the RCMP develop long-term mental health supports and will be valuable to other first responders, including police services, firefighters and paramedics.
The University of Regina is internationally recognized for its clinical psychology work and occupational stress injuries, said Vianne Timmons, president and vice-chancellor of the U of R.
She noted Carleton led a pan-Canadian multidisciplinary team that researched the mental health of Canada’s public safety personnel last year.
“It was the first study of its kind published in Canada and it found that a significant percentage of Canada’s public safety personnel self-report symptoms consistent with one or more mental disorders,” Timmons said. “That’s a much higher proportion than the general public has reported.”
She added Carleton’s research “will support and protect the mental health of those who serve and protect us 365 days a year.”