The South African service (SAPS) has a reputation for being resilient despite the
amounts of trauma they are exposed to. Research has shown that this occupation is one of
the most stressful. However, research surrounding the SAPS suggests that police work is
one of society’s most stressful occupations. The way in which individuals respond to such
traumatisations is dependent on numerous factors, two being personality and coping. In so
far, this study investigated three main areas around police reservists – a unit within the
SAPS - in order to understand their responses to trauma: whether personality factors were
related to post-traumatic stress symptomatology (PTSS) in the police reservist population;
whether coping moderated the relationship between personality factors and PTSS;
whether a personality factors predict coping style. A quantitative analysis was conducted
among a sample of 36 reservists in the Gauteng area of South Africa. This study found
that the relationship between Neuroticism and PTSS is mediated by coping, specifically
Emotion-Focused and Dysfunctional Coping styles. A relationship between
Conscientiousness and PTSS showed to be prevalent, however this is not due to the
mediation affect of coping. Furthermore, Neuroticism and Extraversion showed to predict
coping style. Specifically, Neuroticism showed to affect EFC and DC and Extraversion
showed to affect EFC. The descriptive statistics showed that this sample of police
reservists is suffering from PTSD. Implications of these findings are discussed and
directions for future research are explored.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/14858 |
| Date | 03 July 2014 |
| Creators | Waterston, Danielle |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf, application/pdf |
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