Policing mental health distress

Research focus

This study will examine the prevalence, frequency and nature of police interactions involving mental health distress between April 2022 and March 2024. This will include:

• types of mental health distress incident;
• socio-demographic characteristics of those involved;
• spatial and temporal nature of incidents; and
• involvement in other types of police incident (e.g. missing persons or national negotiators).

We will also examine the prevalence, frequency and nature of access to health services amongst people with mental health distress-related police contact and compare this to a sample of the general population. This will include comparing: socio-demographic characteristics; types of health vulnerabilities (based on diagnoses); and spatial and temporal nature of health service contact over time.

This research has five main objectives:

• Understand the nature of police interactions that involve mental health distress (MHD).
• Estimate the prevalence and frequency of one-time and repeated police contact(s) for persons experiencing MHD.
• Determine the characteristics and underlying health and social vulnerabilities of persons who have police contact related to MHD.
• Examine the types and pathways of health system contact preceding police interactions related to MHD and identify potential patterns of escalation.
• Understand the outcomes or resolutions of MHD-related police interactions.

Data this research aims to link and analyse

This project will involve linkage of information from the following datasets:

• Police Scotland‘s Vulnerable Person’s Database and Missing Person’s Database
• Public Health Scotland’s Unscheduled Care Datamart (including Ambulance call outs, A&E admissions, Hospital admissions and prescribing data)
• National Records of Scotland’s deaths records
• Geographical data and UPRN data

Public benefit

While this project will not directly benefit individuals at the time of any incident of mental health distress, it could have more general public benefit in terms of:

• Service user benefit – improve service delivery/response for future police call-outs and support methods of early intervention/prevention/triage for people at risk of requiring police attendance.
• Organisational benefit – findings could be used by Police and Health services to a) inform staff training, b) improve collaborative working and c) develop strategies for deciding who should best attend calls for service.
• Wider public benefit – educate the public about patterns of mental health distress and provide information about how best to support individuals and who to call for support.

Research team

Professor Susan McVie, Dr Michael Frith  Dr Ana Morales-Gomez (University of Edinburgh), Dr Allison Kurpiel (University of South Carolina), Dr Sarah Couper (Public Health Scotland) and Harry Schone (Police Scotland).