ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Psychology for Clinical Settings
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1584034
This article is part of the Research TopicInterdisciplinary Approaches to Policing and Mental Health CrisesView all 7 articles
Coping with the Toll of Child Sexual Abuse Investigations
Provisionally accepted
- 1Merseyside police, Liverpool, United Kingdom
- 2University of Huddersfield, Huddersfield, United Kingdom
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The policing of child sexual abuse (CSA) can have adverse psychological consequences on police personnel. Though some emerging research has shown a negative impact on quality of life, less is known about the coping strategies used by such professionals when working on CSA cases. The present study surveyed 68 police personnel involved in the investigation and/safeguarding of CSA about their occupational wellbeing (Compassion Satisfaction, Burnout, Secondary Traumatic Stress, and Depression) and coping strategies to work-related stress. Findings demonstrated that the majority of respondents reported low to moderate levels of negative occupational wellbeing, however, a considerable minority, specifically those using venting, self-blame and behavioural disengagement as coping strategies, reported severe negative mental wellbeing. The findings highlight the need for policing organisations to support personnel in identifying and using healthy coping approaches that do not exacerbate the effects workplace stress. The authors identify the need for future research to identify specific problem-focussed approaches that are effective in mitigating the effects of workplace stress on mental wellbeing.
Keywords: policing, child sexual abuse, Investigations, coping, wellbeing, ProQol, Depression
Received: 26 Feb 2025; Accepted: 03 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Easton, Synnott, Mojtahedi and Ioannou. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Dara Mojtahedi, University of Huddersfield, Huddersfield, United Kingdom
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