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Experiences of Police and Emergency Services Employees with Workers’ Compensation Claims for Mental Health Issues

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Abstract

Purpose To assess employees’ experiences of the workers’ compensation claim process for psychological trauma, stress or a mental health condition sustained during the course of work in the police and emergency services sector. Methods 14,868 employees (69.4% male, response rate = 22%) from around Australia participated in Answering the Call: the Beyond Blue National Mental Health and Wellbeing Study of Police and Emergency Services, and were asked questions regarding their workers’ compensation experiences for mental health reasons. Results 14% of all employees in police and emergency services organisations had made a workers’ compensation claim for mental health reasons. Only 8.2% of employees making a claim had a positive experience (95% CI 6.6–9.8) while 70.3% had a poor experience (95% CI 67.6–73.0). Two-thirds of employees who had made a claim reported that the process was unsupportive and stressful, and over half reported that it had an overall negative impact on their recovery. Employees with poor overall support from their managers and those who perceived negative stigma about mental health in their workplace were more likely to report poor experiences. Conclusions The workers’ compensation process is perceived negatively by most police and emergency services employees who have experience with it, and a majority found that it negatively impacted on their recovery. Ways to reform the system to better support employees experiencing significant functional impairments related to mental health issues should be urgently considered.

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Acknowledgements

Answering the Call was conducted by The University of Western Australia in partnership with Roy Morgan Research on behalf of Beyond Blue. The survey was funded by Beyond Blue and the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre.

Funding

The study was funded by Beyond Blue and the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Education, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Perth, WA, Australia

    Michael J. Kyron, Wavne Rikkers, Jennifer Bartlett & David Lawrence

  2. Beyond Blue, Hawthorn, VIC, Australia

    Patrice O’Brien

Authors
  1. Michael J. Kyron
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  2. Wavne Rikkers
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  3. Patrice O’Brien
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  4. Jennifer Bartlett
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  5. David Lawrence
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Correspondence to David Lawrence.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Ethical Approval

All procedures involving human subjects were approved by the Human Research Ethics Committee at The University of Western Australia. The study was also approved by the Ethics Review Committee (RPAH Zone), Sydney Local Health District; the Human Research Ethics Committee (Tasmania) Network; and by the CEO or Research Governance body of each of the 33 participating agencies. All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committees on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000.

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Informed consent was obtained from all patients for being included in the study.

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Kyron, M.J., Rikkers, W., O’Brien, P. et al. Experiences of Police and Emergency Services Employees with Workers’ Compensation Claims for Mental Health Issues. J Occup Rehabil 31, 197–206 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10926-020-09909-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10926-020-09909-8

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