Experiences and perceptions of South African police service members regarding trauma and debriefing services in the Mafikeng area

Abstract

Exposure to trauma continues to be a major health problem specifically in the South African Police Service. During the span of their career, police officers are generally exposed to traumatic events more often and more intensely than employees in other occupations. This frequent exposure to trauma, if not effectively dealt with, can lead to psychological dysfunction and illnesses such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and trauma - related stress. The aim of this study was to explore the experiences and perceptions of police officials stationed at the Mafikeng Accounting station and cluster stations of the SAPS. Much of the researcher's daily work is to assist SAPS members who have been exposed to trauma, by offering trauma debriefing and counseling. This work environment contributed immensely to the researcher developing interest in finding out how SAPS members experience and perceive trauma and debriefing services offered within the organization. The challenges that the researcher is faced with while working as a psycho-metrist and trauma de-briefer within the SAPS were the main motivation for this study to be carried out. Furthermore, lack of adequate research and literature on the experiences and perceptions of trauma debriefing among SAPS members also motivated the researcher to conduct the study. A mainly quantitative approach was used for this study and self-constructed questionnaires were used to gather data about the experiences and perceptions of police members regarding trauma and debriefing services. The instrument had some open-ended questions. Utilizing the structured questionnaire, 300 study participants were included in the main study. Of the 300, a total of 257 questionnaires were returned back to the researcher completed, 24 of them were not returned whereas 19 were returned uncompleted, leading to a total of 257 questionnaires being analyzed. The participants were operational police officers at the rank of Constable, since they are the ones who are to a large extent exposed to trauma than police officers of other ranks. No sampling was done. The constables at the Mafikeng station are 310 in number. The entire population was included in the study. A pilot study was conducted among 10 of these. This 10 was excluded from the main study. In the SAPS there are different types of constables namely Reservist constables, Student/ trainee constables, and Permanent constables. The researcher included all three types falling under Mafikeng and its cluster police stations in the study population as they all carry out the same police constable duties and are exposed to the same level of trauma in view of the nature of their work. For the purpose of this study, no consideration was given to the different groupings. A descriptive design was used to gain a picture into trauma and debriefing services. This study aimed at answering the following research questions: "What are the perceptions of Mafikeng SAPS members regarding trauma and debriefing services?", and "What are the experiences of Mafikeng SAPS on exposure to trauma?."

A detailed literature review on the process and impact of trauma and debriefing services was done, including a theoretical overview of the different debriefing models and the specific model adopted by the SAPS in order to help the researcher in gathering information to complement the information obtained from the study. The research findings showed that Mafikeng SAPS members perceive trauma debriefing services as helpful counseling sessions, also as support from the SAPS as the employer, and support from colleagues as it encourages team solidarity. The findings seem to indicate that the most members experience exposure to trauma as shocking.