American police officers, this study examines the relationship between critical incidents, negative coping, and social stressors, and officer problematic alcohol use and posttraumatic stress symptoms, controlling for demographics. Results from hierarchical OLS regressions indicate that critical incidents are positively associated with alcohol use and PTSD symptoms. Coping mediates the relationship between critical incident and alcohol use, and is both directly and indirectly associated with PTSD symptoms. Social stressors reported by officers were not associated with alcohol use, but were related to PTSD symptoms above and beyond critical incidents, negative coping, alcohol use, and other variables in the model. The final models account for 12% of the variance in alcohol use and 53% of the variance in PTSD symptoms. Theoretical and policy implications of these results are discussed.

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This study controls for officer characteristics (i.e., age, race, children living in the home, relationship status, time in policing, military experience, community size, and country) while examining the effects of critical incidents, social stressors, and coping on alcohol use and posttraumatic stress disorder among men (N ¼ 1,144) and women (N ¼ 309) using self-report surveys from an international sample of police. Gender differences were found in the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test but not in posttraumatic stress disorder models. The critical incidents by coping by social stressors three-way interaction was significantly associated with men's, but not women's, drinking, and the effects of critical incidents were positive for men but negative for women.

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