Implementation and evaluation of the Psycho-social Therapeutic Programme (PTP) for police officials

Abstract

In this article, a Psycho-social Therapeutic Programme (PTP) empowering police officials to better deal with distress and prevent the development of post-traumatic stress (or any other co-morbid disorder) after exposure to traumatic events is evaluated both quantitatively and qualitatively. The quantitative data were obtained by means of the Critical Incident History Questionnaire (CIHQ), the Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R), the Mental Health Continuum Short Form (MHC-SF) and the Post-Traumatic Cognitions Inventory (PTCI). Qualitative evaluation was done by means of self-developed questionnaires. The guidelines for selection and inclusion of respondents in the comparison and experimental groups are discussed, followed by an explanation of the measuring instruments before the results from both the quantitative and qualitative evaluations are explained. The article concludes with a discussion and recommendations