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Cited by 65Stress and Burnout ResearchMindfulness and Compassion InterventionsHeart Rate Variability and Autonomic Control

Police Department Personnel Stress Resilience Training: An Institutional Case Study

Open access
Weltman, Gershon, Lamon, Jonathan, Freedy, Elan, Chartrand, Donald·2014·Global Advances in Health and Medicine
DOI 10.7453/gahmj.2014.015PMC PMC4010956
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Abstract

The objective of this case study was to test the impact in law enforcement personnel of an innovative self-regulation and resilience building program delivered via an iPad (Apple Inc, Cupertino, California) app and personal mentoring. The Stress Resilience Training System (SRTS) app includes training on stress and its effects, HRV coherence biofeedback, a series of HeartMath self-regulation techniques (The Institute of HeartMath, Boulder Creek, California), and HRV-controlled games. The stressful nature of law enforcement work is well established, and the need for meaningful and effective stress resilience training programs is becoming better understood, as it has been in the military. Law enforcement and military service share many stress-related features including psychological stressors connected with the mission, extended duty cycles, and exposure to horrific scenes of death and injury. San Diego (California) Police Department personnel who participated in the study were 12 sworn officers and 2 dispatchers, 10 men and 4 women. The SRTS intervention comprised an introductory 2-hour training session, 6 weeks of individualized learning and practice with the SRTS app, and four 1-hour telephone mentoring sessions by experienced HeartMath mentors spread over a four week period. Outcome measures were the Personal and Organizational Quality Assessment (POQA) survey, the mentors’ reports of their observations, and records of participants’ comments from the mentoring sessions. The POQA results were overwhelmingly positive: All four main scales showed improvement; Emotional Vitality improved by 25% (P=.05) and Physical Stress improved by 24% (P=.01). Eight of the nine subscales showed improvement, with the Stress subscale, perhaps the key measure of the study, improving by approximately 40% (P=.06). Participant responses were also uniformly positive and enthusiastic. Individual participants praised the program and related improvements in both on-the-job performance and personal and familial situations. The results support the efficacy of the program to achieve its goal of building stress resilience and improving officer wellness by providing practical self-regulation skills for better management of emotional energy. We conclude that the SRTS program for building resilience and improving psychological wellness can be as effective for law enforcement as it is for military personnel.

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  • Sessions that provide instruction around optimal app use patterns and the app's purpose can increase the user's knowledge and adherence to mHealth treatment programs.

    “Sessions that provide instruction around optimal app use patterns as well as the app’s purpose, can increase the user’s knowledge and therefore adherence to treatment programs that uses mHealth components [43,48,49].”

    From Efficacy, Effectiveness, and Quality of Resilience-Building Mobile Health Apps for Military, Veteran, and Public Safety Personnel Populations: Scoping Literature Review and App Evaluation (2022) · cites this paper as [49]

    The Timeline describes a session covering the program’s objectives and the app’s operation, and Results > Mentor Reports says participants found the training helpful and that mentoring deepened their understanding. The paper does not establish that this increased adherence to the app-based program, or that greater knowledge caused greater adherence. (LLM, conf=0.85)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

  • HCP support may include providing learning sessions before use to increase efficacy and optimal use patterns, weekly phone check-ins, or using apps to enhance existing therapeutic interactions between clinicians and users.

    “This may include providing learning sessions before use to increase efficacy and optimal use patterns, weekly phone check-ins, or using the apps to enhance existing therapeutic interactions between clinicians and users [43,48-50].”

    From Efficacy, Effectiveness, and Quality of Resilience-Building Mobile Health Apps for Military, Veteran, and Public Safety Personnel Populations: Scoping Literature Review and App Evaluation (2022) · cites this paper as [49]

    The Timeline and Personal Resilience Mentoring sections describe an introductory session before app use and four telephone mentoring sessions over four weeks. Mentor Reports says participants found the initial training helpful and the mentoring made the skills more practical. The study involved police personnel and resilience mentors, however, not clinicians using an app to enhance existing therapeutic relationships with users. (LLM, conf=0.85)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

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Cites

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Research works printed but not linked: 3

  1. [1]Balko R Rise of the warrior cop. The Wall Street Journal. 7 19, 2013
  2. [8]Weltman G Freedy A Freedy E Ratwani R Chartrand D McCraty R Stress resilience training system (SRTS) for inoculating the warfighter, in SBIR Phase II First Quarterly Report, DARPA Contract No. D11PC20125, I. Sherman Oaks, CA: Perceptronics Solutions; 2011
  3. [9]Fletcher JD Tobias S Using computer games and simulations for instruction: a research review. In: Proceedings of the Society for Applied Learning Technology (SALT) Meeting Orlando, FL; 2 18– 20, 2006

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Authors
Weltman, G., Lamon, J., Freedy, E., & Chartrand, D.
Affiliations
  • Perceptronics Solutions (United States) (US)
  • Ease Interactive, Inc, San Diego, California United States
Corresponding author
Weltman, Gershon
Venue
Global Advances in Health and Medicine
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Published
2014-03
Volume
3
Issue
2
Pages
72-79
ISSN
  • 2164-9561 (ISSN-L)
  • 2164-957X
DOI
10.7453/gahmj.2014.015
PMC
PMC4010956
OpenAlex
W2080037445
Cited by
65
References
6
Citations by year
2026: 4 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 3 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 16 · 2020: 10 · 2019: 5 · 2018: 3 · 2017: 6 · 2016: 6 · 2015: 3 · 2014: 2
FWCI
8.41
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
journals.sagepub.com/page/policies/text-and-data-mining-license (tdm)
Locations
  • Global Advances in Health and Medicine (publishedVersion)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Stress and Burnout Research
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Mindfulness and Compassion Interventions
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Cardiology and Cardiovascular Medicine › Heart Rate Variability and Autonomic Control
Keywords
law enforcement officers, police officers, self-regulation, HeartMath, mobile health apps, psychological well-being, occupational stress

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