Pre‐deployment programmes for building resilience in military and frontline emergency service personnel

In this Cochrane systematic review, researchers studied the effectiveness of programs that seek to build resilience to potentially traumatic events among military and frontline emergency service personnel prior to their deployment. They compared resilience programs to other interventions, treatment as usual, or no intervention. 

Researchers concluded that the quality of available data limited their ability to determine if resilience‐building programs can prevent negative outcomes like depression, symptoms of post‐traumatic stress, and diagnoses of PTSD. They recommended that future research should:

• Report pre‐/post‐means and standard deviation scores for scales used within respective studies
• Take the form of large, randomized controlled trials with protocols published in advance
• Seek to measure defined psychological facets like resilience, PTSD, and stress, and measure these concepts using established psychometric tools