Associations between mindfulness, posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms, and posttraumatic growth in police academy...

Mindfulness-based treatments have been increasingly noted in the professional literature as a possible means to reduce posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms and promote well-being, especially among law enforcement officers. Scant research, however, has been conducted to study dispositional mindfulness and health outcomes in police cadets. The current exploratory study examined the association between the various facets of dispositional mindfulness (i.e., observing, describing, acting with awareness, nonjudging, and nonreactivity) and PTSD symptoms, posttraumatic growth (PTG), and other variables, including world assumptions, in police cadets (N = 379). Consistent with findings from previous studies of experienced officers, the results indicate that (a) mindful nonjudging is a salient trait in police cadets, which uniquely predicted lower PTSD symptoms, β = -.31, p < .001, and was related to lower levels of PTG, r = -.12, p = .025, and (b) mindful observing was related to higher levels of PTSD symptoms, r = .14, p = .009 and higher levels of PTG, r = .26, p < .001, in the present sample. In addition, the findings demonstrate that nonjudging is an important trait in police cadets regarding world assumptions such that nonjudging was a significant, unique predictor of world assumption facets, including controllability of events, β = .15, p = .025, and trustworthiness and goodness of people, β = .18, p = .004. Clinical implications, including the importance of understanding the association between mindful nonjudging and the shattering and rebuilding of worldviews and following trauma reactions, are discussed.