“Most of the head injuries were from general life experience, such as contact or extreme sports, and some officers were ex-armed forces,” says Huw Williams, associate professor of clinical neuropsychology at the University of Exeter.
Those with TBI were more likely to have experienced post‐concussion symptoms, which was associated with greater severity of PTSD, depression and drinking to cope.
The research supports findings that head injury can compound PTSD, which almost one in five officers have, and exacerbate drinking as a coping strategy.
The study is the first of its kind, and came about when researchers saw there was no data on the relationship between brain injury in police officers and their mental health.
“We did a brief scoping exercise of the literature, and were fascinated to see there was no research on brain injury in police officers, particularly in connection with brain injury and adverse mental health,” says Nick Smith, graduate research assistant at the University of Exeter.
Williams and Smith were surprised how many officers reported having a brain injury, although they expected there to be a relationship between TBI and adverse mental health.
“We found that, when officers have a mild brain injury, where they were assaulted or in a car accident, they could have PTSD. When they have this with head injury it can be long lasting, and they can exacerbate each other,” says Williams.
“Despite being a relatively small group, the findings were robust enough to say head injury, in the mix with PTSD, depression and drinking to cope, might lead to negative long-term outcomes,” says Williams.
The findings, the researchers argue, highlights a need to tackle TBI and the consequences of post-concussion syndrome, which can cause irritably, poor concentration and memory issues.
The paper states that exploring TBI in the police could, identify a major factor contributing towards ongoing mental health difficulties in a population where, based on previous research, the implications of TBI should not be overlooked.’
“If it’s not properly treated, it could lead to greater absence from work, so it’s reasonable for police forces to pick up on these issues to mitigate risk of long term sickness,” says Williams.
“Otherwise, I can see it snowballing – chronic stresses increase over time and the weight of negative experiences become harder to carry.
“This leads us to think we need a better system in place to identify TBI, an alert system to allow people come back into operations or situations in a way that’s healthy so they’re not exposed to more risk,” Williams says.
In sports, for example, the protocol following a concussion is much clearer, Williams says, and helps to lower a player’s risk of having a second concussion while recovering from the first.
“England Rugby does a great job with concussion management protocols, they identify the problem then do something about it, ensuring people are in the right mindset to be doing a very demanding job,” Williams says.
Increased awareness of TBI in the police would be a natural progression from being aware of prisoners with TBIs, says Williams.
“I’ve worked in prisons looking at how common head injury is in people who end up in prison, and various police forces became interested in working with us in a trauma-informed manner, taking on a more broad view of the vulnerabilities of people they’re working with.
“But working from this perspective involves understanding trauma of people who provide services as well,” he says. “Sixty, 70 percent of the time, police are trying to manage and look after vulnerable people. It’s important to recognise how they can become vulnerable themselves.”
There needs to be a system and trauma-informed principles in place for police officers to manage their own vulnerability, Williams says – and he’s hopeful this will happen in the future.
“Initial conversations with forces indicate a healthy attitude towards trying to improve how can improve psychological wellbeing,” he says.
But this isn’t just up to forces themselves. It’s also important, Smith adds, to lessen divide between police and public.
“Police need help like us – it’s important to understand how trauma might affect them.”
Williams says police are often portrayed negatively in the media, and it’s important that the public is aware of why they make the decisions they make and the laws they have that could lead to them suffering trauma.
PTSD, he says, is more likely to occur when officers don’t feel like society is backing them and the public doesn’t understand why they do what they do.
“It’s important for police to be understood as operating as people for people,” Williams says.
This will also require efforts from across probation, healthcare and education, Williams says, to better understand people from different backgrounds and how to build up empathy across society and reduce violence, as well as educating on the importance of identifying brain injuries when they occur.
Ultimately, Williams is hopeful that police forces want to give officers better protection from the consequences of TBI.
“Police officers need to think about myriad factors at same time, and we want them to be optimum capacity to do that,” Williams says.
This study was a pilot, and Smith hopes to do a much larger study in other police forces across the UK that controls for PTSD and depression to see if increases in post-concussion syndrome are due to head injury and not any other factors.
The first step, Smith says, is finding out the rate of TBI in the police force, then developing a tool to measure and monitor brain injury over time. The research, he says, will be done to help rehabilitate people with TBI, with the aim to help police understand the people they’re meeting, and vice versa.
Williams argues that this work is very relevant to public protection, and it’s important it continues.