Exploration of a virtual reality exercise to help train police with responding to mental health crises in the community

Abstract

Background

A substantial number of police–citizen interactions involve a civilian presenting in a mental health crisis, often with law enforcement as the first point of contact. Traditional training methods offer minimal opportunity for police to practice navigating such civilian interactions or to develop and strengthen relevant skills. Virtual reality (VR) offers a promising avenue for addressing this gap by immersing police officers in realistic, controlled environments that could help them to acclimatise to these encounters and understand their own reactions to them.

Aims

To examine the extent to which law enforcement officers become immersed in a virtual training environment (VTE), to assess their empathy and sympathy towards a non-player character (NPC) presenting with schizophrenic psychosis and how empathy and sympathy relate to virtual immersion.

Methods

Forty police officers—about a fifth of the department approached—participated in a VR mental health training scenario. Officers’ immersion in the VTE was assessed using a 28-item Presence Questionnaire and their empathy and sympathy were measured using adapted standard scales. The study employed Fisher’s Exact Test and Spearman’s correlation to analyse the relationships between immersion, empathy and sympathy.

Results

Most officers experienced good levels of immersion, although nearly half felt confused or disoriented at the beginning of the session. Officers reported moderate levels of sympathy and higher empathy towards a non-player character. Significant correlations were found between specific aspects of immersion (e.g. sensory engagement) and empathy. Fisher’s Exact Test revealed strong associations between physical interactions in the VTE and empathy/sympathy.

Conclusions

Our findings show that police are willing and able to engage in a VR exercise to learn about their response to people in a mental health crisis and that, in such circumstances, they can be both sympathetic and empathic. Next steps will be exploration of the value of such a tool to enhance real-life responding.