Evaluating the Before Operational Stress on-demand asynchronous online training for public safety and healthcare personnel

Background Public safety personnel (PSP) experience frequent exposures to potentially psychologically traumatic events, increasing their likelihood of developing several mental health disorders. The Before Operational Stress (BOS) program was designed as a proactive psychological intervention to build resilience and improve interpersonal relationships among Canadian PSP. Previous mixed-methods evaluations of the BOS program evidenced small but statistically significant improvements associated with BOS Intensive (in-person) training. A new delivery modality was developed to provide asynchronous online access to program content (i.e., BOS On-Demand) to improve accessibility. Objective The current study was designed to assess the impact of BOS On-Demand with data from a large sample of PSP ( n = 9295; n = 636 [56.1% female] completed all surveys). Methods Participants were administered a self-report survey at pre-training, post-training, and at a 3-month follow-up. Multilevel modeling was used to assess differences in outcome measure changes across timepoints. Results BOS On Demand was associated with several small, but statistically significant, improvements sustained at follow-up, including decreased stress (post-training , p ≤ .001, Cohen’s d = -0.15; follow-up, p ≤ .01, Cohen’s d = -0.19), as well as increased mental health knowledge (pre-training, p ≤ .01, Cohen’s d = 0.13; follow-up, p ≤ .001, Cohen’s d = 0.34). Conclusion The current study provides the first evaluation of the BOS On-Demand program, evidencing encouraging improvements across several measures of mental health.