Suicide Trends in the Italian State Police during the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic: A Comparison with the Pre-Pandemic Period

Silvana Maselli, Antonio del Casale, Elena Paoli, Maurizio Pompili and Sergio Garbarino
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Silvana Maselli: State Police Health Service Department, Ministry of the Interior, 00185 Rome, Italy
Antonio del Casale: Department of Dynamic and Clinical Psychology, and Health Studies, Faculty of Medicine and Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Italy
Elena Paoli: State Police Health Service Department, Ministry of the Interior, 00185 Rome, Italy
Maurizio Pompili: Department of Neuroscience, Mental Health, and Sensory Organs (NESMOS), Faculty of Medicine and Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, 00189 Rome, Italy
Sergio Garbarino: State Police Health Service Department, Ministry of the Interior, 00185 Rome, Italy

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 10, 1-10

Abstract: The pandemic is posing an occupational stressor for law enforcement personnel. Therefore, a high priority is the need to quantify this phenomenon and put supportive programs in place. During the pandemic period, the Italian State Police implemented different support programs for the personnel. These included a national toll-free number to provide information on COVID-19 to police staff, availability of a health care service by doctors and nurses at the national level, vaccination services, working remotely, and a psychological intervention protocol called “Together we can” (“Insieme Possiamo”). Our study firstly aims to perform a descriptive analysis of the suicide in the Italian police from 2016 to 2021, and secondly aims to compare the pandemic and pre-pandemic periods. During the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic (February 2020 to October 2021), the suicide rate in the State Police did not significantly increase compared to the pre-pandemic period, showing a stable trend with a not significant decrease in the suicide rate. The implementation of staff support services by the Central Directorate of Health of the Italian State Police and individual resilience aspects of the Police personnel in response to the pandemic may have positively affected the phenomenon. These aspects pave the way to further studies on the issue to improve preventive strategies.

Keywords: suicide; police officers; suicide rates; SARS-CoV-2 pandemic; prevention (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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