Police stress, state-trait anxiety, and stressors among U.S. Marshals

Threat-Related Attentional Biases in Police Officers and Martial Artists: Investigating Potential Differences Using the E-Stroop and Dot Probe Task

“…Furthermore, it is noteworthy that Newman and LeeAnne Rucker-Reed (2004) found a trait anxiety mean of 32.94 in U.S. marshals, compared with a mean of 35.55 in the norms for working males aged 19 to 39 (Spielberger et al, 1983), whereas the mean trait anxiety of police officers in this study was 43.64, compared with the control group with a mean of 47.52. With these scores, the police officers are in the upper 20% of the German norms for working males aged 30 to 59.…”

“…As police use of force training also contains "hand-to-hand" combat techniques, it may be possible that the perceived improvement in self-protection skills may lead to reduced anxiety. However, several studies investigating state and trait anxiety of officers compared with adult normative samples (Newman & LeeAnne Rucker-Reed, 2004;Storch & Panzarella, 1996) showed no differences between the groups. Hence, the findings from this study contradict those from earlier works.…”

Job demands, job resources, and burnout among police officers

“…Other studies had not been able to document this, and had in fact reported low levels of strain and burnout when police officers were compared to other occupations in the legal system (Anson & Bloom, 1988) or to normative data (Kop et al, 1999). Two studies examining anxiety among American police officers indicated similar or slightly lower scores on anxiety compared to normative data for working men for both state and trait anxiety (Newman & Rucker-Reed, 2004;Storch & Panzarella, 1996). A recent review of studies of suicide among police officers (Hem, Berg, & Ekeberg, 2001), did not report elevated suicide rates among police officers as opposed to previous claims.…”

“…Studies of American police officers (Storch & Panzarella, 1996) and deputy marshals (Newman & Rucker-Reed, 2004) indicated that organizational factors such as bad management or work conditions were more frequently identified as negative stressors than potential violence or exposure to human misery. A study of Dutch police officers also indicated that organizational stressors, especially poor management, were mentioned more often than stressors related to the job content (Kop et al, 1999).…”

A Survey of Quality of Life and Depression for Police Officers in Kaohsiung, Taiwan

“…Indeed, police work tends to be regarded as stressful and dangerous because of exposure to confrontation, violence, traumatic incidents, and human misery, and even the possibility of being seriously injured or killed. High public demands on police officers and a mounting focus on police efficiency and integrity also contribute to the stress in this profession [3,4]. The changing nature of the work caused by efficiency demands, heavy workloads, long working hours, and job insecurity, among others, all lead to increased job pressure in police forces.…”