Stress Perception Mediates the Relationship between Stress and Quality of Life among Chinese Police Officers

Abstract

Background Police officers are known for working under high-stress environment, and it is widely reported that police officers suffer from stress-related ailments which could subsequently impact their life quality. However, there is little direct research that describes the relationship between police officers’ quality of life and stress. Current study aims to investigate police officers’ quality of life and explore the effect of stress on life quality of police officers. Our study also explores the effect of stress perception on the relationship between the stress and quality of life to see whether changing police officers’ stress perception can improve their quality of life.Methods We conduct literature search on police officers’ life quality in China, and compare the result against the general population. We also investigate 914 Chinese police officers, measured their life quality, stress level and stress perception, and analyze the stress’ influence on quality of life.Results The result shows that the life quality of police officers is generally lower than the general population, and many factors, such as age, education level and gender, will influence the quality of life. Police officer’s life quality is negatively correlated with their stress level, and stress perception appears to mediate the relationship between the stress and quality of life.Conclusion Police officers’ quality of life is low, and stress has negative effect on it. And stress would affect the stress perception and then influence mental and physical health of police officers.