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Group comparison by cognitive domain. † † Estimated marginal means adjusting for the covariates are presented; Error bars represent standard error from the mean; asterisk (*) represent statistically significant between-group differences, *p < .05 **p < .01.
Source publication
Background:
Neuropsychological alterations co-occur with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD); yet, the nature and magnitude of such alterations in police officers remains unknown despite their high level of trauma exposure.
Objective:
The current research sought to examine (1) cognitive functioning among police officers with and without PTSD; (...
Contexts in source publication
Context 1
... 2 p = .08), wherein the PTSD group's scores were lower than the control group's ( Figure 1). These differences remained significant when controlling for depression status, with a smaller yet moderate effect size found in the executive function (p = .037, ...
Context 2
... it was suggested by Scott and colleagues (2015), among certain individuals with PTSD, a cognitive performance within the normal range might represent a relative decline from their premorbid level of functioning and may negatively impact their daily activities. Currently, pre-trauma cognitive fragilities in executive function and verbal learning are considered as a risk factor to the development of PTSD ( Gilbertson et al., 2006;Marx, Doron- Lamarca, Proctor, & Vasterling, 2009;Parslow & Jorm, 2007); conversely, prospective studies suggest that cognitive functioning is further affected after the development of the disorder (Vasterling et al., 2018). While premorbid cognitive functioning fragilities may partly account for the observed group differences, the cross-sectional nature of the current study limits any conclusions regarding the contribution of premorbid cognitive functioning to current neuropsychological profile. ...
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Citations
... Exposure to such trauma is viewed by some as an occupational hazard (Foley et al., 2023), but such exposure can often be accompanied by feelings of intense fear, horror, and helplessness (Sherin & Nemeroff, 2011). Mental health problems are higher when there has been recent exposure to trauma (Biggs et al., 2021;Fallon, 2018;Foley et al., 2023;Stevelink et al., 2020) and police officers with mental health problems, such as PTSD, display lower cognitive performance levels across several domains, including executive function, verbal learning, and memory (Bisson Desrochers et al., 2021), which can impact their job performance. ...
... We found that there was consensus on these issues from participants regardless of gender, rank, or length of service. The findings in this paper are consistent with other studies which have examined the relationship between policing and mental health, where research has found that exposure to trauma, excessive workload, bullying, and a lack of support from management all adversely impact the mental health of police officers (Biggs et al., 2021;Bisson Desrochers et al., 2021;Foley et al., 2023;Soomro & Yanos, 2018;Van der Velden et al., 2013). Given that previous studies have identified many of these issues in An Garda Síochána (Fallon, 2018;PWC, 2018), our findings suggest that these are endemic rather than one off concerns. ...
The mental health of police officers is a critical yet under-researched area. They face unique operational and organisational stressors, including exposure to violence and trauma, as well as bullying, managerial conflict, and a lack of support in the workplace. This paper explores the multifaceted challenges impacting police mental health through thematic analysis of an online questionnaire completed by 98 members of An Garda Síochána (Irish police force) in Ireland. We found, inter alia, the existence of a culture of bullying and a lack of managerial support within the institution. Furthermore, exposure to traumatic events as part of the policing role was found to have a negative impact on the mental health of most respondents.
... So even in the absence of a threat the officer suffers from chronic selective negative perception, hyper vigilance, brain fog and impulsivity. Functioning in the higher brain areas of memory, learning and lexical access according to Desrochers et al. (2021) is also heavily impacted and this badly distorts the officer's performance at work and in non-work (family, leisure and other functioning out of work). Depending on how many officers are affected this can glossily disorient police communities around the station, camp or neighbourhood. ...
Purpose: This paper explores how Police officers in Kenya and elsewhere in the globe play an irreplaceable role of ensuring security, law and order but are exposed to a wide range of potentially psychologically traumatizing events in the course of duty without adequate internal trauma informed support. This trauma potentiates them to develop Post Traumatic Stress Disorder which is associated with many dysfunctional behaviors like assault, homicide and suicide. Materials and Methods: Hermeneutic phenomenology approach is used to collect information from scholarly articles and media reports on the subject of police trauma and internal support. This data is then assessed to generate findings presented in this paper. Thirty case studies of Kenya police perpetrated assault, homicide or suicide are also selected randomly from the media to support the scholarly findings about work related police trauma and internal support. Findings: Kenyan police officers are exposed to traumatic events but police training and culture encourages hardiness, masculinity and repression instead of trauma informed coping. The case studies reveal that traumatized police officers in Kenya develop severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) which then presents in various psychological disorders and deviance like assault (14%), murder (30%), suicide (90%) and homicide (17%). Implications to Theory Practice and Policy: Police management should put in place trauma informed curriculum in police training and practice. Psychological and situational mediators should also be established as a priority for trauma prevention, mitigation and stress management. Researchers should go beyond highlighting police psychological morbidity to investigate models and interventions that work to prevent and speedily resolve police trauma.
... Only six studies (37.5%) showed significant divided attention deficits related to PTSD. Three studies (18.8%) found a trend for divided attention deficits among those with PTSD(Bisson Desrochers et al., 2021;Esterman et al., 2020;Schultebraucks et al., 2022). Two of the studies with significant results investigated the relationship with symptom severity and showed that a higher level of attentional dysfunction was predictive of worse PTSD symptoms(Buodo et al., 2011;Meewisse et al., 2005). ...
... Two of the studies with significant results investigated the relationship with symptom severity and showed that a higher level of attentional dysfunction was predictive of worse PTSD symptoms(Buodo et al., 2011;Meewisse et al., 2005). Another two studies specifically investigated the correlation between re-experiencing symptoms and worse attention deficits, but these results did not reach significance(Bisson Desrochers et al., 2021; Buodo et al., 2011). ...
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a debilitating psychiatric disorder characterized by symptoms such as re‐experiencing of the psychotrauma and hyperarousal. Although current literature mainly discusses the emotionally related aspects of these symptoms, studies also highlight the relation between re‐experiencing, hyperarousability, and attention deficits, which are associated with poorer daily function and reduced quality of life. This review provides a comprehensive analysis of the existing research on attention deficits among adults with PTSD. A systematic search through five databases resulted in the inclusion of 48 peer‐reviewed, English‐language articles, describing 49 distinct studies. Using a total of 47 different attentional assessment tools, the majority of studies investigated sustained (n = 40), divided (n = 16), or selective (n = 14) attention. A total of 30 studies (61.2%) found significant correlations between PTSD symptoms and attention deficits, and 10 studies (20.4%) found that higher levels of attention deficits were predictive of worse PTSD symptoms. Moreover, neuroimaging results of six (f)MRI and three EEG studies identified various potential neurobiological pathways involved, including (pre)frontal attention networks. Together, the body of research shows that attention deficits in individuals with PTSD are common and occur in surroundings with emotionally neutral stimuli. Nonetheless, current treatment strategies do not target these attentional difficulties. We propose a novel perspective to PTSD diagnosis and treatment strategies based on attention deficits and their relation with top‐down regulation of re‐experiencing and subsequent other PTSD symptoms.
Emotional future thinking serves important functions related to goal pursuit and emotion regulation but has been scantly studied in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The current study sought to characterize emotional future thinking in PTSD and to identify clinical and neurocognitive profiles associated with potential alterations in the level of detail in narratives of imagined future events. Fifty-eight, trauma-exposed, war-zone veterans, who were classified into current PTSD, past PTSD, and no-PTSD groups, were asked to vividly imagine future events in response to positive and negative cue words occurring in the near and distant future. These narratives were scored for internal (i.e., pertaining to the main event) and external (i.e., tangential to the main event) details. Participants also performed neurocognitive tasks of generative ability, working memory, and relational verbal memory. Linear mixed modeling revealed that the current and past PTSD groups generated fewer internal details than the no-PTSD group across positive and negative cue words and across temporal proximity. Partial least squares analysis revealed that symptom severity for all PTSD clusters was inversely associated with production of internal details, albeit with the association relatively weaker for intrusion symptoms. Among the neurocognitive tasks, only relational verbal memory was associated with production of internal details. These findings suggest, as predicted, that functional avoidance may underlie reduced detail generation but also point to potential additional mechanisms to be further investigated. That future event simulation remains overgeneral even when PTSD symptoms abate highlights the importance of addressing alterations in future thinking in this population.
Perceiving one's remaining time until death, can serve as a source of resilience when faced with adversity in the second half of life. The current work is based on a prospective study and examines whether subjective nearness-to-death (SNtD) moderates the association between posttraumatic-stress symptoms (PTSS) and hope among adults in the second half of life. The first wave was conducted after the end of a military conflict in the south of Israel, and included 170 participants (M = 66.61, SD = 9.16; age range 51-91), 115 of whom also participated in Wave 2. Participants filled out self-reported questionnaires regarding background information, PTSS, SNtD and hope. A moderation effect was found, revealing that high levels of PTSS predicted lower levels of hope among those who felt close to their death, but not among those who felt far from their death. We suggest that one's evaluation of little time remaining to live, especially in old age, may be a significant factor exacerbating the negative consequences of PTSS on hope. The importance of the results to the research field is discussed.
Early life stress (ELS) can cause long-term changes in gene expression, affect cognition, mood, and behavior, and increase susceptibility to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in adulthood, in which the histone acetylation plays a crucial role. Studies have found that environmental enrichment (EE) mitigated the unfavorable outcomes of ELS. However, the underlying mechanism of the histone acetylation is not yet completely clear. The purpose of this study was to explore the effect of EE on the histone acetylation after ELS. In this study, using single prolonged stress (SPS) paradigm in early adolescent rats explored the long-term effects of ELS on behavior, the activity of histone acetyltransferases (HATs) and histone deacetylases (HDACs), as well as the acetylation levels of the lysine 9 site of histone H3 (H3K9) and lysine 12 site of histone H4 (H4K12) in the hippocampus and amygdala. Meanwhile, the protective effects of EE intervention were examined. We found that adult male rats exposed to ELS showed behavioral changes, including reduced locomotor activity, increased anxiety-like behaviors, impaired spatial learning and memory, enhanced contextual and cued fear memory, and the HATs/HDACs ratio and acetyl H3K9 (Ac–H3K9) and acetyl H4K12 (Ac–H4K12) were increased in the hippocampus and decreased in the amygdala. Furthermore, EE attenuated the behavioral abnormalities from ELS, possibly through down-regulating the activity of HATs in the hippocampus and up-regulating HDACs activities in the amygdala. These finding suggested that EE could ameliorate ELS-induced PTSD-like behaviors by regulating histone acetylation in the hippocampus and amygdala, reducing the susceptibility to PTSD in adulthood.
