Members of the SAPS come into contact with violent crimes on a daily basis. They also have to
deal with changes on an organisational level, as well as large amounts of administrative work.
The Coping Orientations to Problems Experienced Questionnaire (COPE) was completed by
police members in the North West Province, and eight items focusing on emotion-focused
coping were added. The objectives of this study were to assess the construct validity and internal
consistency of the COPE in the SAPS, with added scales for emotional processing and emotional
expression. Another objective was to conceptualise coping, and specifically coping within the
policing context from the literature. Finally, analyses of the differences between the coping
strategies of different demographic groups in the SAPS were conducted.
A cross-sectional survey design was used. The study population (N=229) included samples of
police personnel across the North West Province. In addition to the COPE, a biographical
questionnaire compiled by the researcher, was administered. The dispositional version of the
COPE was used, consisting of 53 items. Eight additional items which measure emotional
processing and emotional expression were also used.
Initial analysis revealed the COPE subscales to be unreliable. Subsequent analysis indicated that
two coping mechanisms which reflected emotionality in broad terms were employed by SAPS
members. These factors were termed Active Emotional Expression and Emotional Reappraisal,
and showed acceptable Cronbach Alpha coefficients. Item bias analysis was conducted and two
items indicated uniform bias, and another two non-uniform bias. Tucker's phi coefficients for
Active Emotional Expression and Emotional Reappraisal were all acceptable, indicating
equivalence for both the Afrikaans and "other" languages groups. With regard to the two coping
factors, no significant differences were found between the created language categories, or
gender. Differences between the coping strategies of police members with different ranks, marital states and salary categories were also not significant.
Recommendations for the organisation and future research were made. / Thesis (M.A. (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2006.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:NWUBOLOKA1/oai:dspace.nwu.ac.za:10394/1282 |
| Date | January 2005 |
| Creators | Visser, Hester Antoinette |
| Publisher | North-West University |
| Source Sets | North-West University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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