Poster #170 - Perceptions of Trauma Severity in Police Academy Cadets

• In Event: ASC Poster Session I

Abstract

Exposure to traumatic events may result in an overactive fear response, causing survivors to perceive future events as more threatening than they would have prior to the initial trauma. Law enforcement officers are commonly exposed to different types of traumatic events, including those involving threat to self (i.e., Self-Trauma) and the witnessing of harm to others (i.e., Other-Trauma). Scant research, however, has been conducted to examine perceptions of trauma severity in police academy cadets. A model of trauma, based on Contemporary Learning Theory, purports that posttraumatic reactions including arousal and fear are conditioned responses stemming primarily from 1) stress deemed as uncontrollable and unpredictable and 2) temperament (i.e., neuroticism). Using this model as a basis for our research questions, the current study examined associations between different worldview facets (i.e., controllability of events, trustworthiness/goodness of people, comprehensibility/predictability of people, and safety/vulnerability), different PTSD symptom clusters (i.e., reexperiencing, hyperarousal, avoidance, and negative alterations in cognition and mood), neuroticism, and rumination with perceptions of Self-Trauma severity and Other-Trauma severity in a sample of police academy cadets (N = 379). Results indicated that comprehensibility/predictability of people and rumination were unique predictors of both Self-Trauma and Other-Trauma severity perceptions. Clinical and training implications are discussed.

Authors

• Brian Chopko, Kent State University at Stark

• Jeremy Davis, Grand Canyon University

• Richard Adams, Kent State University

• Terri Pelger, Kent State University

• Patrick Palmieri, Summa Health System