Retired police officers are an important group to study to understand factors that contribute to resilience following exposure to duty-related critical incidents. The authors surveyed 21 trauma-exposed, retired, male Michigan police officers on a variety of demographic, personality, exposure, coping, nontraumatic work stress, posttraumatic growth, physical health, mental health, and interpersonal functioning measures. Resilience was defined as relatively good functioning in three domains: physical health, mental health, and interpersonal relationships.Among the many variables that characterized resilient retired police officers, the most important were sharing work-related matters with friends and family and refraining from distancing coping strategies. Taken together, these findings suggest that integrating the stress associated with police work into officers' daily social lives may sow seeds that can be reaped for a resilient retirement.
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