Workplace Resilience and Forensic Vigilance Among Forensic Mental Healthcare Professionals

Journal of Forensic Psychology Research and Practice | 2026, p. 1-23

The Relationship between Workplace Resilience and Forensic Vigilance in Forensic Mental Healthcare Professionals

In the introduction, the author explains that forensic mental healthcare professionals work in environments marked by “dual-role conflicts, patient aggression, and public scrutiny,” yet previous research has shown that these professionals do not always report higher levels of stress or burnout than other mental health workers. The paper discusses how forensic professionals may possess unique “skills, attitudes, and competencies” that help buffer the effects of occupational stress. One proposed concept is “forensic vigilance,” defined as “anticipating on possible escalation of a situation before it happens by actively observing your surroundings and colleagues.” The introduction also reviews workplace resilience, describing it as “an active process of positive adaptation following an adverse event at work.” The author argues that resilience may support forensic vigilance because professionals must remain aware of possible danger “without developing a strong emotional reaction.” The study aimed to examine two primary questions: whether there is “a relationship between forensic vigilance and workplace resilience,” and whether “resilience at work influence[s] the relationship between forensic vigilance and burnout symptoms” (p. 1-4).

The study included 283 forensic mental healthcare professionals in the Netherlands who were currently working in, or had previously worked in, forensic mental healthcare settings. Participants represented a variety of institutions, including “high secure forensic hospital[s],” outpatient services, and forensic assisted living settings. Most participants reported that patient contact was their “main task” or that they had “frequent patient contact.” Recruitment occurred online through institutional intranet pages, professional networks, and forensic mental health groups. Participants completed several measures, including the Forensic Vigilance Estimate (FVE), the Workplace Resilience Inventory (WRI), and the Utrecht Burnout Scale for Clients (UBOS-C). The FVE measured participants’ self-rated forensic vigilance using 15 items on a visual analogue scale. Workplace resilience was assessed through the WRI, which measured “affective, behavioral, and cognitive self-regulatory processes.” Burnout symptoms were assessed using the UBOS-C, which examined “emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal accomplishment.” The researchers analyzed the data using hierarchical regression analyses to explore relationships between forensic vigilance, resilience, and burnout symptoms (p. 4-8).

The results showed “a significant relationship between the total score on the WRI and forensic vigilance,” suggesting that resilience and forensic vigilance are related. However, the effect was small, with the author noting that “the proportion of explained variance is rather small, with an R² of only .026 and an effect size of .027.” The researchers also found that forensic vigilance was positively associated with the burnout subscale “Personal accomplishment.” Professionals with higher forensic vigilance appeared to feel more competent and effective in their work. However, resilience itself “did not show influence on experienced Personal Accomplishment.” The author interpreted these findings as evidence that forensic vigilance may contribute to professionals feeling successful in their work, even if resilience alone does not directly improve those feelings (p. 8-14).

In contrast, the study found “no significant relationship between either forensic vigilance or workplace resilience, nor their interaction term, and Emotional exhaustion and Depersonalization.” These findings were unexpected because prior literature often suggests that resilience protects against burnout. The discussion notes that stress and burnout in forensic settings may instead be linked to other factors such as “experiencing aggression from patients,” “high workload,” “diminished trust in management,” or “restricted autonomy.” The author also considered whether the COVID-19 pandemic may have affected the findings because staff had additional responsibilities related to monitoring symptoms and managing pandemic-related stressors. Another possibility raised was that resilience and forensic vigilance may only become especially important “in the case of an incident, rather than a continuous relationship that is ever present” (p. 14-16).

“Summarizing: our results largely show no relationship between forensic vigilance and resilience, on the one hand, and burnout, on the other hand, where theoretically one could have been expected. Earlier literature has shown several factors that are relevant in the development of stress and burnout symptoms (Coffey, 1999; Forman-Dolan et al., 2022; Happell, Martin, et al., 2003; Happell, Pinikahana, et al., 2003; Rodrigues et al., 2021). Reduction of stress and the prevention of burnout symptoms among forensic professionals are of importance to prevent employee absenteeism, staff turnover, and mistakes (Moniz et al., 2024; Spaan et al., 2024). However, the results presented here would point to promoting resilience to stress and burnout in employees on its own, rather than an effect that can be expected from increased resilience to adverse events or increased forensic vigilance. Spaan et al. (2024), for example, recommend problem-focused coping and positive cognitive restructuring.

While resilience was not directly related to burnout, enhancing resilience through structured programs that promote emotional regulation and stress management could help professionals navigate the challenges they face. Such programs could be introduced at various stages of a professional’s career, from onboarding to continuous training and supervision, to build long-term coping strategies. This can be done with, for example, structured coaching, but also by coaching on the job from experienced peers or supervisors with long-term experience in working in the primary care process. Finally, though no relationship with the Emotional exhaustion and Depersonalization aspects of burnout has been found, and therefore no benefits to the rate of burnout among staff will be expected when forensic vigilance is increased, forensic vigilance is relevant for working in the field in general (Clercx et al., 2020). It is therefore also advised to take efforts to strengthen forensic vigilance in professionals. This can, for example, be done by means of gamification (Kortmann et al., 2023), by means of a dice-and-question game (de Woenselse Poort, n.d.), or a training program developed specifically for forensic psychiatric professionals (Clercx & Brenkman, accepted for publication). Also, on this topic, on-the-job training by experienced professionals is likely important” (p. 16-17).

“The study suffered from a number of limitations worth mentioning. First, despite the relatively large sample size, the data showed problems regarding (non)normality of residuals and multicollinearity. This limited the analyses we could reliably include and complicated the interpretation of the results. This also concerns our biggest limitation: we could not examine the interaction effect between forensic vigilance and reliance, and the influence thereof on experienced burnout symptoms.

Furthermore, we only included forensic mental healthcare professionals in our study. We thus do not know whether the presented relationships found here (or lack thereof) are unique to the forensic mental health workplace. Future studies should include non-forensic mental health professionals as a comparison group. On top of that, our sample was recruited only through an open call to participate. Our study therefore also suffered from a self-selection bias. Those choosing to take part often have stronger opinions or motivations, or different characteristics than those who opt out, therefore our results should be interpreted with care surrounding generalizability.

One of the subscales of the WRI, the subscale Self-regulatory processes, shows sub-par internal consistency in our sample. Conclusions about this subscale should be interpreted with caution; however, none of the WRI subscales was shown to be a significant predictor, so no specific results concerning this (or other) subscale were presented.

Moreover, the UBOS-C, which we used to study burnout symptoms is reliable and used frequently to study burnout symptoms, including in forensic professionals (see for example de Looff et al., 2018), this instrument measures burnout symptoms in a general sense and does not specifically look at which elements of a respondent’s job are experienced as stressful. As we hypothesized earlier, it may be the case that elements surrounding the burden of administration or a lack of experienced autonomy may cause more stress and feelings of depletion.

Finally, we did not differentiate between those that had experienced different types of incidents in our study (we did not find significant differences in any of the examined variables between those that had, had barely not, and had not experienced an incident). Earlier work (de Looff et al., 2018; Verstegen et al., 2024), shows that experiencing aggression from patients may have severe consequences, including negative consequences on mental health. It may be worthwhile in the future work to differentiate between forms of aggression experienced. It may be very likely that the influence of resilience on burnout symptoms differs between types of aggression, or incident severity. For example, those who have not (yet) experienced (severe) physical aggression may not need to have been resilient yet, and therefore if they experience burnout symptoms these may also likely been due to factors other than the occurrence of physical aggression. However, hypothetically, those who have experienced (severe) physical aggression may have needed to be resilient. It is also likely that there is an influence on forensic vigilance, for example because one becomes overly vigilant, or feels less confident to be assertive, both important aspects of forensic vigilance (Clercx, Didden, et al., 2023)” (p. 17-18).