The ‘cost’ of caring in policing: From burnout to PTSD in police officers in England and Wales

Foley, Jim; Massey, Kristina

doi:10.1177/0032258x20917442

Cited by 41 publications

(44 citation statements)

References 94 publications

(133 reference statements)

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“…Resilient coping correlated negatively with emotion-orientated and positively with task and avoidance coping, suggesting avoidance strategies are sometimes used for managing stress [ 44 , 69 ]. These results are in line with other studies and confirm that policing is a stressful professional occupation [ 1 , 2 , 15 , 28 ] and that burnout affects police officers [ 4 , 6 , 24 , 27 ]. Moreover, results confirmed the preference of task-orientated coping among police officers [ 41 , 43 , 44 , 45 ], despite low values of resilience coping.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

“…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.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Queirós

Passos²,

Bártolo

et al. 2020

IJERPH

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Policing is a stressful occupation, which impairs police officers’ physical/mental health and elicits burnout, aggressive behaviors and suicide. Resilience and coping facilitate the management of job stress policing, which can be operational or organizational. All these constructs are associated, and they must be assessed by instruments sensitive to policing idiosyncrasies. This study aims to identify operational and organizational stress, burnout, resilient coping and coping strategies among police officers, as well to analyze the psychometric properties of a Portuguese version of the Organizational Police Stress Questionnaire. A cross-sectional study, with online questionnaires, collected data of 1131 police officers. With principal components and confirmatory factor analysis, PSQ-org revealed adequate psychometric properties, despite the exclusion of four items, and revealed a structure with two factors (poor management and lack of resources, and responsibilities and burden). Considering cut-off points, 88.4% police officers presented high operational stress, 87.2% high organizational stress, 10.9% critical values for burnout and 53.8% low resilient coping, preferring task-orientated than emotion and avoidance coping. Some differences were found according to gender, age and job experience. Job stress and burnout correlated negatively with resilient coping, enthusiasm towards job and task-orientated coping. Results reinforce the importance to invest on police officers’ occupational health.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Queirós

Passos²,

Bártolo

et al. 2020

IJERPH

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The trauma related to mental-health disorders of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, depression and burnout are four of the most prevalent and debilitating mental-health conditions worldwide [ 5 ]. Among them, PTSD and burnout are the most commonly studied consequences of workplace violence [ 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 ], with fewer efforts focused on anxiety and depression [ 22 , 23 ]. Research with nurses has demonstrated similar results, with more intense exposure (operationalized as more frequent exposure to one or more types of workplace violence) having been linked to higher levels in mental-health outcomes including PTSD, burnout, anxiety, depression and insomnia among nurses [ 6 , 7 , 13 , 22 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does the Type of Exposure to Workplace Violence Matter to Nurses’ Mental Health?

Havaei

2021

Healthcare

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Workplace violence is a prevalent phenomenon in healthcare, particularly among nursing professionals. Exposure to workplace violence may be direct through firsthand involvement, indirect through secondhand witnessing, or both. Even though implications for victims of workplace violence have been well-studied, less is known about the various types of exposure and their effects on nurse mental health. The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of workplace-violence exposure types on the mental health of nurses, while accounting for the intensity of the incident/s. This study employs an exploratory correlational design with survey methods. Nurses from British Columbia (BC), Canada, were invited by the provincial nurses’ union to complete an electronic survey in Fall 2019. A total of 2958 responses from direct-care nurses in acute-care settings were analyzed using logistic regression. The results showed that mental-health problems increased with cumulative exposure; even though nurses with solely indirect exposure to workplace violence did not report greater mental-health problems, those experiencing solely direct exposure, or both direct and indirect exposure, were two to four times more likely to report high levels of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, depression and burnout compared to their counterparts with no exposure. There is an urgent need for better mental-health support, prevention policies and practices that take into account the type of workplace-violence exposure.

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“…This might be the result of potential cognitive decline connected with aging, which gradually decreases the ability to process traumatic events (Foa and Kozak 1986). Length of service also seems to increase the odds of developing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, which might be the result of high demands and low resources in the workplace and burnout (Acquadro Maran et al 2020;Foley and Massey 2020). In the case of number of types of traumatic events, the more diversified the traumatogenic stimuli, the higher are the odds of developing PTSD symptomatology (similar results were found by Hartley et al (2013).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Traditional Male Role Norms, Social Support, and Symptoms of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder Among Male Polish Police Officers

Sitko-Dominik

Jakubowski

2021

J Police Crim Psych

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Police officers’ work involves the exposition to traumatogenic stimuli. The aim of the research is to investigate potential associations between post-traumatic stress disorder and the traditional masculinity norms and social support. Three questionnaires were used: the Impact of Event Scale-Revised adapted by Juczyński and Ogińska-Bulik (2009), the Social Relations Scale (Skarżyńska 2002), and the Male Role Norms Scale translated by the authors of this paper. The sample comprised 111 male active service members of the Polish Police. The analysis shows statistically significant, mildly negative associations between post-traumatic stress disorder symptomatology variables and social relations/support (− .312 to − .386), and mild-to-moderate positive associations between the traditional male role norms and post-traumatic stress disorder symptomatology variables (.361–.506). The intergroup differences between the police officers that probably meet the PTSD criteria and those that do not meet the criteria were mainly observed in complying with the traditional masculinity norms, in which the police officers with probable post-traumatic stress disorder had higher results than those without it; the reverse was observed in the case of social relations/support. Traditional masculinity norms, length of service, number of types of traumatic events, social relations/support, and age have proved to be significant independent predictors of post-traumatic stress disorder (β = − .38–β = .49). However, in the multivariate regression, only social status norms, age, social relations/support, and number of types of traumatic events proved to be significant predictors of post-traumatic stress disorder (β = − 26 to .40), accounting for 45% of post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms.

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The ‘cost’ of caring in policing: From burnout to PTSD in police officers in England and Wales

Cited by 41 publications

References 94 publications

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

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

Does the Type of Exposure to Workplace Violence Matter to Nurses’ Mental Health?

Traditional Male Role Norms, Social Support, and Symptoms of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder Among Male Polish Police Officers

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