Prevalence of stress among police worker: a cross-sectional study

Abstract

Background: Globally, police work is considered to be one of the stressful occupations. They deal on a regular basis with an assortment of unique situations and stressors. Long working hours, irregular eating habits, shift duties and disturbed personal life produces stress in the police officer’s life. Aims: To assess the prevalence of stress in police worker and to see the association of stress with different variable.Methods: This cross-sectional observational study conducted on 245 police personal working at provincial armed constabulary (PAC), Sitapur. After informed consent, demographic data of individual such as age, duration of service, nature of duties, types of foods were recorded. Anthropometric parameters were measured using standardized techniques. Stresses of subjects were recorded through pre structured questionnaire. Available data analyze by using chi-square test to see significance of association with different variables.Results: In this study mean age of individual was 40.34±8.23 and mean duration of service was 23.29±8.49. Majority (95.92%) of police worker were involved in shift duty and only 4.08 percent of individual involved in office work. 31.84% of subjects were having mild stress, 16.73% were having moderate and only 0.41% were having severe stress. Association of stress with duration of service or nature of job was not statistically significant.Conclusions: Stress level is high among police personnel. Different associated factor related to stress like faulty food habits and shift work need implementation of regular counselling and stress management program can help to reduce their stress.