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The purpose of this paper is to explore the empirical literature on the resilience of public police officers and private security guards in stressful situations involving threats, violence, accidents or death. This paper studies the definitions of resilience used in these professions, identifies trends in applied research methods and examines the main topics addressed in previous research.

A scoping review was carried out, with searches in Web of Science and Google Scholar, as well as a secondary manual screening in Dutch academic journals. Based on this review, 33 empirical studies were included in the current paper.

First, it was revealed that a clear-cut definition of resilience applied to public police and private security guards is currently lacking. Second, predominantly quantitative designs were found to be used in the selected studies. Third, the 33 empirical studies provided insights on four main topics: demographic factors, personal characteristics, interpersonal aspects and resilience training programs. Remarkably, this scoping review did not find any empirical research on the resilience of private security guards.

This study systematically integrates the findings of empirical research on the resilience of security providers to stressful situations. The documentation of research activity, gaps and inconsistencies in the literature offer direction for future research in this relatively new field of study.

The purpose of this study is to explore the empirical literature on the resilience of firefighters related to potentially traumatic events (PTE). This paper identifies how resilience is defined in this particular research field, reveals trends in applied research methods and examines the main topics addressed in previous research.

Web of Science, PsycARTICLES and Google Scholar databases were searched, as well as a secondary manual screening of the reference lists of all the selected studies and Dutch academic journals. Based on this review, 54 empirical articles were included in the current paper.

Firstly, this paper revealed that there is no consensus in how to define the concept of resilience in this specific research area. A second observation was that most of the selected studies used a quantitative, cross-sectional research design. Finally, the 54 empirical studies provided insights on six topics: the role of the organization, demographic factors, personal characteristics, coping strategies, social support and the reactions of firefighters in the aftermath of PTE. Comparing the empirical results was challenged by the different interpretations and denominations of the concept of resilience and the myriad of measurement techniques applied across the selected articles.

This literature review discovered some promising avenues for future research regarding resilience of firefighters. Moreover, it demonstrated that studying resilience is particularly interesting as the identification of supporting factors leads to a better understanding of how to enhance the well-being, job satisfaction and job performance of firefighters.