Burnout, Coping, Stress of Conscience and Psychosocial Work Environment among Patrolling Police Officers

Abstract

Police personnel work under different circumstances in various environments involving stressful situations which can increase the risk of burnout. Aim of this study was to investigate the association between burnout (emotional exhaustion, EE vs. depersonalization, DP) and psychosocial work environment, stress of conscience as well as coping strategies among patrolling police officers in Sweden. Most of the independent variables; psychological demand, decision latitude, social support, and coping scales were correlated with EE and DP. A hierarchical multiple regression was performed to investigate the predictive impact of; psychological demand, decision latitude, social support, coping strategies and stress of conscience. Findings revealed that risk of EE increased with a troubled conscience for both women and men when coping strategies were added to the model. For men risk of DP increased with troubled conscience. Only low decision latitude was associated with risk of DP for women when coping strategies were added to the model. Results from this study indicate that stress of conscience has to be taken into consideration and also levels of social support and decision latitude when studying the influence of the psychosocial work environment on burnout.