TNM - USA EDITION - CCUPCA

RST RESPONDER | MILITARY | LAW ENFORCEMENT | INTELLIGENCE
By Marco STRANO
POST TRAUMATIC
STRESS DISORDER IN
POLICE OFFICERS
Police officers are continuously dealing with scenarios of violence, accidents
and disasters. After spending long hours constantly exposed to tragedies and
according to qualified scientific research the results on their bodies and minds are
alarming. The Police members are indeed a professional category statistically particularly
subject to problems of alcoholism, family crises, depression and suicide. Post-traumatic
stress disorder is a transient psychiatric disorder that can occur in people of any age
who have lived or who have witnessed a critical / traumatic event. The disorder, in the
police environment, can show up as a result of exposure to a situation that has caused
a dangerous situation to one’s own safety (such as a shooting or a car crash) or for that
of others or in particularly bloody scenarios with the presence of blood and corpses.
Symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder may occur after a variable period of time
from the time of the very trauma (even several months), and may be very different from
one person to another one. One of the primary symptoms is the so-called “re-experience of
trauma”, which consists of a set of intense and realistic memories and sensations to give
the subject the distinct sensation of living the “catastrophic” moment once again. In several
cases the traumatic event is relived throughout a real flashback, a kind of hallucination
during which the subject relives images and bodily sensations experienced at the time of
the critical event. Other typical symptoms of the disorder are significant alterations related
to the mood, the affective flattening (with loss of interest in things, people and situations),
a state of constant alert (characterized by tension, anxiety, hyper-reactivity to stimuli,
difficulty in concentration and insomnia), the systematic conduct of avoidance of stimuli
that may recall the trauma itself (places, objects, people, activities, etc.). The scientific
community has highlighted the need for a rapid (preventive) intervention immediately after
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