Burnout and Stress Measurement in Police Officers: Literature Review and a Study With the Operational Police Stress Questionnaire

Abstract

Research has demonstrated that policing is a stressful occupation and that this stress has a negative impact on police officers' mental and physical health, performance, and interactions with citizens. Mental health at the workplace has become a concern due to the costs of depression, anxiety, burnout, and even suicide, which is high among police officers. To ameliorate occupational health, it is therefore crucial to identify stress and burnout levels on a regular basis. However, the instruments frequently used to measure stress have not valorized the specificity of policing tasks. This study aims to: (i) conduct a literature review to identify questionnaires used to assess occupational stress and burnout among police officers; (ii) analyze the psychometric characteristics of a Portuguese version of Operational Police Stress Questionnaire (PSQ-Op); and, using the PSQ-Op and other questionnaires, (iii) to identify operational stress, burnout, and distress levels among Portuguese police officers. The literature review identified 108 studies which use a multiplicity of questionnaires to measure burnout or occupational stress among police officers, but few studies use specific police stress questionnaires. Sample sizes were mostly below 500 participants and studies were mainly developed in the last decade in the USA and Brazil, but also in another 24 countries, showing the extent of the interest in this topic. This study applied to 2057 police officers from the National Portuguese Police, a force policing urban centers, and used the PSQ-Op, as well the Spanish Burnout Inventory and the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale. The results show that the psychometric properties of the Portuguese version of PSQ-Op are adequate. Factorial analysis revealed two dimensions defined as social and work issues, which were associated with measures of distress and burnout. Fit indices suggested a second-order solution called operational police stress. Overall, and considering the scale range of each questionnaire, the results showed moderate values of operational stress, distress, and burnout. However, considering their cutoff points, 85% of the sample presented high operational stress levels, 11% critical values for burnout, and 28% high distress levels, with 55% of the sample at risk of a psychological disorder. These results reinforce the need to prevent stress and to invest in police officers' occupational health.

Job Stress, Burnout and Coping in Police Officers: Relationships and Psychometric Properties of the Organizational Police Stress Questionnaire

“…This questionnaire is free for non-commercial, educational and research purposes. After the adaptation of the PSQ-Op [ 4 ], this study used only the organizational stress sources. The PSQ-Org questionnaire is composed of 20 items evaluated on a 7-point scale ranging from 1 (“not at all stressful” or “no stress at all”) to 7 (“very stressful” or “a lot of stress”), with 4 indicating moderate stress.…”

“…Nowadays, policing is considered a stressful professional occupation [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 ] requiring police officers to cope with danger, uncertainty and unpredictability. Thus, their job stress is increasing, leading to burnout, mental/psychological disorders or even police suicide [ 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 ], forcing police officers to be resilient and to develop coping strategies to face all job demands.…”

“…Despite policing stress sources being multiple [ 4 , 9 ], they can be divided in operational and organizational stressors, being operational and organizational stress two distinct and specific constructs for police forces [ 10 ]. According to several authors [ 4 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 ], operational stressors are related with policing specificities such as working in shifts, danger and risk of injury, critical incidents, traumatic events, citizen criticism of police officers’ behavior, perception of policing by society, fear of excessive use of force, aggressive interactions, work–family conflict, etc. On the other hand, organizational stressors are related with Police as an institution/organization, including stressors such as conflicts with supervisors/colleagues, lack of material/human resources, work overload, excessive administrative tasks, leadership problems, etc., as well each police department/command/police station specific way of functioning.…”

“…When the response to chronic job stress is inadequate, burnout appears as an occupational phenomenon [ 20 , 21 ] defined as a “prolonged response to chronic emotional and interpersonal stressors on the job, [expressed on] three dimensions of exhaustion, cynicism and inefficacy” [ 22 ] (p. 397). Regarding police officers’ burnout, innumerous studies found high levels of exhaustion and depersonalization, relationships between burnout and mental/psychological problems such as anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder [ 4 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 ], as well as depersonalization as a coping strategy, emotional suppression and difficulties to express true emotions [ 27 ]. Furthermore, police officers’ burnout can be related with internal or external aggression, a current social and political concern.…”

Study of the Predictive Validity of the Burnout Granada Questionnaire in Police Officers

“…The presence of stress and burnout can mask physical health problems in police officers (obesity, hypertension, heart problems and other diseases). In order to respond to this problem, it is essential to carry out longitudinal studies and implement programs to reduce stress and promote healthy living habits in police officers [ 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 ].…”