Feasibility of Mindfulness Training for Police Officers at the Spanish National Police Academy

A 7-week mindfulness-based intervention called 'Mindfulness to Promote Police Well-being' was tested with 61 trainee inspectors at the National Police Academy in Spain. Participants found the program logical, satisfactory, and useful. One cohort showed significant improvements in mental well-being, trait mindfulness, body awareness, general distress, and emotion regulation, with medium-to-large effects. Changes in well-being and distress were linked to changes in mindfulness, body awareness, and emotion regulation. The second cohort showed no significant changes, likely due to contextual differences. The study suggests that integrating mindfulness training into police academy infrastructure may be feasible and acceptable.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Abstract The aim of this exploratory study was to investigate whether a mindfulness-based intervention (MBI), the 'Mindfulness to Promote Police Well-being' program, was feasible for trainee inspectors of the National Police Academy in Spain. A 7-week MBI was conducted in a group of 61 trainee inspectors (M age = 43.52, SD = 8.95) from the National Police Academy in Ávila (Spain), divided into two cohorts. Expectancy and opinion, well-being, distress, affect, perceived stress, mindfulness, body awareness and emotion regulation were measured before and after the intervention. Feedback on their at-home meditation practice and assessment of their affect and stress levels were provided weekly too. The intervention was considered logical, satisfactory, recommendable, useful, and non-aversive. Both cohorts were separately analyzed due to remarkable contextual differences in the implementation of the MBI. Paired-samples t-tests showed that the first cohort significantly improved their mental well-being, trait mindfulness, body awareness, general distress, and difficulties in emotion regulation, with medium-to-large effect sizes. Correlation analyses showed that changes in both mental well-being and general distress were significantly associated with changes in trait mindfulness, body awareness, and difficulties in emotion regulation. Linear mixed model analysis showed that participants of the first cohort improved week-by-week their perceived stress and positive affect levels. Overall, the second cohort remained unchanged. Considering the above, a feasible way to promote mindfulness in policing might be through the police training system infrastructure. Police officers may find mindfulness training acceptable and appropriate in this context.