The present paper is a literature study of stressors and the responses in police officers to occupational stressors. It endeavors to identify and assess common stressors in policing. It further aims to provide an answer to the question of whether police administrative tasks and situations, or the dangerous and traumatic events and situations inherent in policing, are perceived as equally or more stressful by surveyed police officers. The question is relevant as there seems to be disagreement among researchers on police stress about which elements (administrative or dangerous and/or traumatic) of the police occupation is more stressful. Much attention has been given to the treatment of post-traumatic stress in police officers while efforts to prevent administrative or organizational stressors have been largerly ignored. If administrative stressors in policing are equally important as dangerous and traumatic situations and events, more attention should be given to the prevention of such largerly preventable stressful events. The theoretical framework used in the study is that of the transactional concept of stress. In trying to assess what parts of policing are more stressful, a number of empirical studies were examined and compared. Most studies applied a "checklist" approach to identify and rank the heaviest stressors in police work. The methodological quality of available studies was varied, influencing their comparability and generalizability. In spite of these inequalities, the results from the assessment indicates that dangerous and traumatic situations are somewhat more often perceived as the largest stressors than administrative stressors in police work.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:pdx.edu/oai:pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu:open_access_etds-5688 |
| Date | 02 July 1993 |
| Creators | Manheimer, Katarina Ahlstrom |
| Publisher | PDXScholar |
| Source Sets | Portland State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Dissertations and Theses |
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