Moral injury, coping strategies, and supports among Canadian public safety personnel.
Journal of military, veteran and family health · 2025-06-01 · Observational study
Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Public safety personnel (PSP) are at increased risk of exposure to potentially morally injurious events (PMIEs) and moral injury because of the nature of their work. The purpose of this study was to explore how moral injury relates to coping strategies and supports that PSP may use to care for their mental health. METHOD: Between June 2022 and June 2023, PSP were invited to participate in an online survey that indexed socio-demographic information, moral injury (with shame and trust violation sub-scales), perceived organizational support, social support, spiritual well-being, self-compassion, alcohol use, cannabis use, and childhood adversity. Hierarchical multiple linear regressions were constructed to assess the relations between coping strategies and supports and 1) overall moral injury, 2) shame-related moral injury, and 3) trust-violation-related moral injury, controlling for age, mental health history, and childhood adversity. RESULTS: Moral injury was negatively associated with perceived organizational support, spiritual well-being, and self-compassion. Shame-related moral injury was negatively associated with spiritual well-being, self-compassion, and social support. Finally, trust-violation-related moral injury was positively associated with alcohol use and negatively associated with perceived organizational support and spiritual well-being. DISCUSSION: Although PSP and related groups may continue to experience moral injury because of job-related duties, there may be room to intervene via spiritually informed resources, self-compassion training, and social and organizational support.