Frequency and severity approaches to indexing exposure to trauma: The Critical Incident History Questionnaire for police officers

Abstract

The Critical Incident History Questionnaire indexes cumulative exposure to traumatic incidents in police by examining incident frequency and rated severity. In over 700 officers, event severity was negatively correlated (rs = −.61) with frequency of exposure. Cumulative exposure indices that varied emphasis on frequency and severity—using both nomothetic and idiographic methods—all showed satisfactory psychometric properties and similar correlates. All indices were only modestly related to posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. Ratings of incident severity were not influenced by whether officers had ever experienced the incident. Because no index summarizing cumulative exposure to trauma had superior validity, our findings suggest that precision is not increased if frequency is weighted by severity.

Associations Between Police Stress and Alcohol Use: Implications for Practice

“…The questionnaire also asked respondents to subjectively rate the amount of overall stress they were experiencing from work-related traumatic events (subjective traumatic stress), work-related but nontraumatic stressors, and their personal relationships on a 0 to 10 Likert-type scale (0 = no stress, 5 = moderate stress, 10 = severe stress). Subjects were provided with a list of 34 traumatic experiences commonly experienced by officers (e.g., being seriously injured during an assault, killing or seriously injuring someone in the line of duty, seeing someone dying, encountering a child who had been badly beaten), as found on the Critical Incident History Questionnaire (Weiss et al, 2010), and instructed to answer the traumatic stress-related questions based on these types of experiences as a means of ensuring clarity in differentiating work-related traumatic events from other work-related stressors. The subjective work-related traumatic stress, work-related but nontraumatic stress, and personal relationship stress measures were single-item questions designed to measure the overall amount of perceived stress in these areas.…”

“…Examples of incidents that may be experienced as traumatic by officers include having to kill or seriously injure someone in the line of duty, being seriously injured accidentally or intentionally, being exposed to a life-threatening disease, or seeing someone dying (Weiss et al, 2010). As a result, officers may experience posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms (American Psychiatric Association, 2000;Chopko & Schwartz, 2012;Violanti & Aron, 1994).…”

Peritraumatic tonic immobility is associated with PTSD symptom severity in Brazilian police officers: a prospective study

“…27 To assess the characteristics of the critical incidents experienced by the police officers during their first year of work, we used the Critical Incident History Questionnaire (CIHQ), a 34-item self-report measure designed to identify the frequency and severity of critical incidents in the line of police duty. 28 All participants signed an informed consent and the study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Institute of Psychiatry of Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.…”

A Psycho-Social Therapeutic Group Work Programme Preventing the Onset of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Among Police Officials Attached to the Specialised Units in the South African Police Service

“…By observing the problem and studying naturally occurring innovations and other prototypes, researchers can identify procedural elements for use in the intervention. The standardised measurement instruments, namely the Critical Incident History Questionnaire (CIHQ) (Weiss, Brunet, Best, Metzler, Liberman, Pole, Fagan & Marmer, 2010), Impact of Event Scale (IDES-R) (Weiss, 2007), Mental Health Continuum Short Form (MHC-SF) (Keyes, 2002;Keyes, 2007) and the Post-Traumatic Cognitions Inventory (PTCI) (Foa, Ehlers, Clark, Tolin & Orsillo, 1999), were utilised before, post-and post-post-intervention in an experimental design.The researcher presented the PTP to a group of social workers responsible for the specialised units of SAPS in the North West province. The researcher exposed the group of social workers to exactly the same procedures and programme as planned for the main investigation in order to determine the effectiveness of the intervention and to identify which elements of the preliminary programme may need to be revised.…”

“…By observing the problem and studying naturally occurring innovations and other prototypes, researchers can identify procedural elements for use in the intervention. The standardised measurement instruments, namely the Critical Incident History Questionnaire (CIHQ) (Weiss, Brunet, Best, Metzler, Liberman, Pole, Fagan & Marmer, 2010), Impact of Event Scale (IDES-R) (Weiss, 2007), Mental Health Continuum Short Form (MHC-SF) (Keyes, 2002;Keyes, 2007) and the Post-Traumatic Cognitions Inventory (PTCI) (Foa, Ehlers, Clark, Tolin & Orsillo, 1999), were utilised before, post-and post-post-intervention in an experimental design.…”