Research Summaries
Why was the study done?
Public safety personnel (PSP) in Canada include border services officers, correctional workers, firefighters, paramedics, police, public safety communicators, and other occupations dedicated to keeping communities safe. PSP face diverse mental health challenges, and internet-delivered cognitive behavioural therapy (ICBT) is an effective and accessible treatment for various mental health concerns. Canadian PSP report favourable attitudes toward ICBT, and preliminary studies have shown that PSP benefit from ICBT. The current study was designed to investigate longer-term outcomes of ICBT for PSP.
What was done in the study?
560 Canadian PSP participated in ICBT and completed questionnaires before, during, and after treatment. We analyzed their responses to assess the longer-term effectiveness of ICBT, as well as factors that might influence engagement or treatment outcomes in ICBT, such as gender, linguistic group (English or French), occupational group, and years of experience as a PSP.
What did we find out?
Participants showed reductions in symptoms of various mental health problems. When we reassessed symptoms six months and one year later, participants had maintained improvements in their mental health. Participants also showed good treatment engagement and reported high treatment satisfaction. These outcomes were observed regardless of participants’ gender, language, occupation, or years of experience.
Where do we go from here?
There are many opportunities for further research in this area. Examples include investigating strategies for improving ICBT outcomes (e.g., optimizing treatment content or therapist support), exploring what makes ICBT work, or assessing outcomes of ICBT for PSP in other countries.
The original wording of the study was changed and condensed for the current research summary.
Original study
Hadjistavropoulos, H., McCall, H., Dear, B., Beahm, J., Carleton, R. N., Titov, N. Outcomes of Transdiagnostic Internet-Delivered Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Tailored to Public Safety Personnel: A Longitudinal Observational Study, Journal of Anxiety Disorders, (2024) doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.janxdis.2024.102861.
Prepared by K. Harris