Risk factors for occupational stress among Greek police officers

Abstract

Purpose In view of the absence of police stress research in Greece, the purpose of this paper is to measure occupational stress among police officers and to investigate occupational stress risk factors. Design/methodology/approach A cross-sectional study with a convenience sample was conducted among 336 police officers in Athens, Greece. Data collection was performed during January to March 2018 and the response rate was 77.8 percent. Demographic characteristics, job characteristics, lifestyle factors and coping strategies were considered possible risk factors. The “Operational Police Stress Questionnaire” and the “Organizational Police Stress Questionnaire” were used to measure occupational stress, while the “Brief Cope” questionnaire was used to measure coping strategies. Findings Regarding service operation, the most stressor events were personal relationships outside work, tiredness, bureaucracy, injury risk and lack of leisure for family and friends. Regarding service organization, the most stressor events were lack of personnel, inappropriate equipment, lack of meritocracy, lack of sources and inappropriate distribution of responsibilities in work. According to multivariate analysis, increased use of avoidance-focused coping strategy, and decreased sleeping, physical exercise and family/friends support were associated with increased occupational stress. Moreover, police officers who work out of office experienced more occupational stress than police officers who work in office. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study in Greece addressing the risk factors for occupational stress among police officers. Modifiable occupational stress risk factors among police officers were found and should be carefully managed to decrease stress and improve mental health.

The relationship between organisational stressors and mental wellbeing within police officers: a systematic review

“…As with all systematic reviews, new potentially eligible studies may have been published since the literature search was conducted, which could be a limitation. We have identified three studies that have been published since our search that examine organisational risk factors (shift work [36], job demands and resources [109] and supervisor support [125]) and mental health outcomes (stress [36, 125], EE and wellbeing [109]). The results of these studies are in agreement with the outcomes of our review [109, 125], and present a new significant association between shift work and occupational stress [36].…”

“…Organisational stressors have been suggested to be a greater source of stress for police officers [35, 36] because officers may recognise them as oppressive [37], unnecessary [37], unavoidable [37] and uncontrollable [38, 39]. Organisational stressors suggested to contribute to the manifestation of stress include lack of support, heavy work load [32], interpersonal conflict with colleagues and supervisors [40], inadequate resources, time pressure, and an overly bureaucratic organisational system, punitive of staff and strictly managed [40, 41].…”

Antecedents and Consequences of Work Stress Behavior

“…Antecedents of work stress originating from roles in the organization have been identified as producing work stress to a certain extent. Some of the antecedents of work stress that come from roles in organizations found in this literature study are role conflict (Harry, 2020;Naoum et al, 2018;Soelton et al, 2019;Yang et al, 2019), role ambiguity (Amirudin, 2019;Harry, 2020), distribution/management of responsibilities (Galanis et al, 2018;Hampton et al, 2019), and work obligations (Kongcharoen et al, 2019).…”

Impacto del entrenamiento en resiliencia y manejo del estrés: estudio de caso en la Policía Nacional de Colombia

“…En particular, un número considerable de investigaciones ha estudiado los niveles de estrés relacionados con la capacidad y el fortalecimiento de la resiliencia, el comportamiento humano, la salud física y mental y el desempeño laboral (Tepper et al, 2001); asimismo, existen otras enfocadas y relacionadas directamente con la profesión policial (McCraty & Atkinson, 2012); el impacto al estar expuesto permanentemente a situaciones impredecibles y complejas (Hartley et al, 2008); el trabajo policial imprevisible y su relación con una reactividad fisiológica significativa (Gilmartin, 2002); el mantenimiento fisiológico de los síntomas del estrés durante largos periodos y cómo afecta negativamente la salud física y mental de los uniformados (Anderson et al, 2002); las extensas jornadas laborales, el trabajo por turnos, en una estructura organizacional piramidal que se gestiona de arriba hacia abajo (Ramey et al, 2012); cómo los síntomas de ansiedad generan un aumento en la probabilidad de disparar erróneamente durante incidentes críticos simulados (Covey et al, 2013); el riesgo de fatiga laboral, agotamiento emocional, reducción del logro personal (Conrad & Kellar-Guenther, 2006); la tendencia aumentada de los profesionales de policía a sufrir enfermedades cardiovasculares (Hartley et al, 2011), los factores de riesgo cardiovascular tradicionales inflamatorios por el estrés percibido en profesionales de policía (Wright et al, 2011); las afectaciones en la permanencia laboral o los fallecimientos prematuros relacionados con trastornos del estrés en el trabajo (Waters & Ussery, 2007), los efectos de la resiliencia y su relación con el funcionamiento psicológico de los oficiales de policía (Balmer et al, 2013), el cortisol como método objetivo de medición para examinar los efectos del entrenamiento y posibles resultados en la salud laboral a largo plazo (Andersen et al, 2016), la relación entre la resiliencia y la capacidad de modular eficazmente la respuesta al estrés (Averill et al, 2018), la ambigüedad, el conflicto y la sobrecarga de roles policiales están asociados con niveles más altos de estrés en los oficiales de policía (Frank et al, 2017), el nivel de estrés de los agentes de policía que trabajan fuera de la oficina en comparación con los agentes de policía que trabajan en oficina (Galanis et al, 2019), los beneficios de la capacitación en resiliencia para reducir el estrés ocupacional, la satisfacción laboral y el bienestar psicológico de las mujeres policías (Chitra & Karunanidhi, 2018), el papel mecanicista de la resiliencia psicológica en el agotamiento en oficiales de policía y bomberos…”