Job Stress and Coping Strategies as Predictors for Psychological Wellbeing among Malaysian Anti-Drug Professionals

Abstract

Existing studies have suggested that job stress and coping strategies are among the key factors of psychological wellbeing. Yet, the information on how these psychological factors contribute to psychological wellbeing in Malaysian anti-drug professionals is still scarce. Thus, the aim of this study was to examine the predicting roles of job stress and coping strategies on psychological wellbeing among Malaysian anti-drug officers. The participants were consisted of 1454 staffs from the National Anti-Drug Agency (NADA) aged from 21 to 59 who completed online self-report measures of job stress, control and avoidant coping strategies, and psychological wellbeing. Descriptive analysis indicated that majority of the respondents reported high levels of psychological wellbeing and avoidant coping strategy, but lower levels of job stress and control coping strategy. A multiple regression analysis showed that job stress was related to lower psychological wellbeing while control coping strategy was related to higher psychological wellbeing. Overall, the findings highlight the needs to consider job stress and coping strategies to understand psychological wellbeing among Malaysian antidrug professionals. Also, this study recommended future research to consider longitudinal research design to better understand the directions of the relations among the studied variables.