Identification and measurement of work-related psychological injury: piloting the psychological injury risk indicator among frontline police.

Abstract

To develop a self-report measure of work-related psychological injury, the Psychological Injury Risk Indicator (PIRI), with a comparable level of accuracy and reliability to individual clinical assessment by a skilled clinical psychologist. Two pilot studies investigated the responses of a) 34 frontline police officers completing the PIRI measure who were also examined by a highly experienced clinical psychologist and b) 217 officers who completed the PIRI measure and also the General Health Questionnaire 12 measure. The PIRI scale identified both the presence and the level of psychological injury in the clinical group with a remarkably high level of correspondence to concurrent clinical assessment (r = 0.80). The PIRI scale can be used both for the individual assessment of psychological injury and as a potential online screening tool. Its latter use is that it could enable the early identification of evolving psychological injury among workers, facilitating timely and career-preserving intervention.