Effects of a Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) training program upon police officers before and after Crisis...

In communities across the United States and internationally, police officers frequently come into contact with individuals experiencing mental health crisis despite not having the skills to safely intervene. This often results in officers resorting to excessive or even deadly force. The Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) is heralded as a revolutionary and transformative intervention to correct this gap in practice. Several previous interdisciplinary national and international studies, including criminology and sociology, have examined these concepts using quantitative and qualitative methodological designs, however, no prior nursing studies have been done on this topic. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of CIT training on police officers' knowledge, perception, and attitude toward persons with mental illness. Twenty five police officers participated. An explorative, quasi experimental, descriptive design was used to collect the data on the three major concepts. Results on knowledge about mental illness improved at p<.0125 (p<.05 after Bonferroni correction). Perception scores improved at p<.0125 (p<.05 after Bonferroni correction), and attitudes were more favorable at p<.0125 (p<.05 after Bonferroni correction). The results of this study validated the CIT program as an innovative community health program that benefits law enforcement, consumers, mental health professionals, and stakeholders.