Gender and age differences in posttraumatic stress disorder and depression among buffalo police officers

Because of the stressful nature of police work, officers may be at increased risk for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression. The Impact of Event Scale (IES) and Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression (CES-D) survey were administered to 100 officers. Mean IES and CES-D scores and prevalence of PTSD and depression were compared across gender and age. Female officers had higher mean IES and CES-D scores than male officers. Mean CES-D scores tended to increase with age, whereas mean IES scores varied little across age. Prevalence of depression was greater among women (22.0%) than men (12.1%), yet differences were less evident for PTSD (36.6% women, 34.5% men). Depression and PTSD tended to increase with age and were not explained by gender, marital status, or education.