Practice Profile: Mindfulness Training for Law Enforcement to Reduce Occupational Impact

Withrow, Russell, and Gillani (2023) conducted a meta-analysis to evaluate mindfulness training for law enforcement on officers’ physical and mental health outcomes.

To find eligible studies, PubMed, Scopus, APA PsycINFO, CI- NAHL, and ERIC databases were searched. Additional search methods were used to ensure completeness of the review process, which included searching for dissertations and theses in Open Access Theses and Dissertations, reviewing relevant government organizations focused on policing, and contacting one expert in the field. Inclusion criteria for this review included randomized controlled trials or experimental studies of any type of training or intervention focused on law enforcement officers with a mindfulness component. Additionally, studies must have included at least one comparison group (e.g., no intervention comparison group or waitlist), be published in English, and have measured outcomes related to physical or mental health symptoms or both. Interventions were included in this study with both formal and informal mindfulness curricula.

Following screening, a total of 33 articles were included for full-text review. After review, there were five articles that met all criteria and were therefore included in the data extraction and systematic review. Of the five studies extracted for the systematic review, only four were included in the meta-analysis portion, as one study was non-randomized. There were 612 participants for analysis, with 302 individuals in the intervention conditions and 310 individuals in the control groups. The studies were conducted in the United States, Germany, Spain, and Brazil. All studies focused on adults employed as police officers, and all participants were screened for eligibility into the studies using recruitment methods such as the internet, email, social media, posters or flyers, and in-person announcements. Three of the four studies included in the meta-analysis used comparison group waitlists with the intervention offered after the study was completed (Christopher et al. 2018; Grupe et al. 2021; Trombka et al. 2021), and one used a control group that received regular police education courses rather than the intervention (Krick and Felfe 2020).

Outcomes of interest were depression, anxiety, sleep quality, and burnout. Depression and anxiety were measured with the Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information, the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, and the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule-X. Measures for the sleep quality outcome included the Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information, the Mohr Health Complaints Scale, and the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Inventory. Burnout outcome measures included the Oldenburg Burnout Inventory or the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory.

A random-effects inverse variance method was used for all outcomes except burnout, which was analyzed using a fixed-effects inverse variance method because there were only two studies included. Effect sizes were determined by calculating the standardized mean difference (SMD) between the mindfulness intervention group and the control group for each outcome. A weighted average of the intervention effect from the individual trials was calculated. Effect sizes were derived for four outcomes: 1) depression (based on four studies), 2) anxiety (based on four studies), 3) burnout (based on two studies), and 4) sleep quality (based on three studies).