Exploring Occupational Stress, Personality an...

Exploring Occupational Stress, Personality and Coping in Police Personnel: An Exploratory Study

Author Name : Dr. Malini Nandi Majumdar

Few studies have been conducted to focus on identifying sources of occupational stress in police. There are still dearth of studies to see the impact of personality and coping methods on occupational stress among police individuals. The present study aims at understanding the association of personality traits and coping methods in combatting occupational stress in police personnel. This cross-sectional study was conducted involving four
ranks from Constables to Inspectors working under various districts under West Bengal Police, India. The study sample consisted of 450 police persons. The socio-demographic data was individually collected from them. General Health Questionnaire-28 (GHQ-28) was used for assessing psychological stress, Eysenck's Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) for personality traits, and Coping Checklist-1 (CCL-1) for eliciting coping methods. The statistical analysis was done using SPSS software. On screening by GHQ-28, 35.33% of the police were found to be having psychological distress. The socio-demographic variables showed no significant association to psychological stress. Personality traits such as neuroticism, psychoticism, and extroversion and coping methods like negative distraction and denial/blame showed statistically significant association (P<0.05) with psychological stress. The most commonly used coping methods across the sample were social support (68.23%), acceptance/redefinition (58.15%), and problem solving (64.19%). As measured by Pearson's correlation coefficient (r), there was evidence of linear association between certain personality traits and coping methods as well. The personality traits and coping methods have significant independent and interactive role in the development of high psychological stress in police persons, thus placing them at a high risk of developing psychiatric disorders.