Evaluating the multiple stressor intervention of the South-African Police Service as a trauma management tool

• Main Author: Van den Heever, Coenraad Willem
• Other Authors: Janeke, Hendrik Christiaan
• Format: Others
• Language: en
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: Multiple stressor intervention; Critical Incident Stress Debriefing (CISD); Trauma; South African Police Service (SAPS); Debriefing; Davidson Trauma Scale (DTS); Impact of Event Scale Revised (IES-R); Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD); Acute Stress Disorder (ASD); 616.85210968; Post-traumatic stress disorder > South Africa; Post-traumatic stress disorder > Treatment > South Africa; Police > Mental health services > South Africa; Police > Job stress > South Africa; Police psychology > South Africa; South African Police Service
• Online Access: Van den Heever, Coenraad Willem (2013) Evaluating the multiple stressor intervention of the South-African Police Service as a trauma management tool, University of South Africa, Pretoria, <http://hdl.handle.net/10500/13853>; http://hdl.handle.net/10500/13853

This study examined the validity of the South African Police Service (SAPS) multiple stressor intervention. The multiple stressor was developed for members of their specialised units to address Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Unfortunately, the SAPS multiple stressor intervention lacks scientific evidence to support its possible effectiveness in addressing PTSD. In the current study a deployment and intervention group was compared which employed a pre- test post-test design. The Davidson Trauma Scale and the Revised Impact of Event Scale measured PTSD globally, but also the PTSD dimensions of Intrusion, Avoidance/Numbing, and Hyperarousal. The Wilcoxon signed rank test results indicated that the intervention and deployment was both effective in addressing PTSD although the intervention group revealed the greatest improvement in their overall PTSD scores. The intervention group made significant progress in dealing with all three PTSD symptoms while the deployment group made less progress with their Intrusion and Avoidance/Numbing symptoms, but made significant progress with their Hyperarousal symptoms. The Mann-Whitney u test revealed no significant differences between the post intervention test scores of the two groups, either globally or on the three PTSD dimensions. It appears that deployment was just as effective as the multiple stressor intervention in addressing PTSD. === Psychology === M.A. (Psychology)