Relationship between psychosocial stress dimensions and salivary cortisol in military police officers.

Juliana Petri Tavares,Daiane Dal Pai,Tânia Solange Bosi De Souza Magnago,Liana Lautert,Angélica Rosat Consiglio

doi:10.1590/1518-8345.1199.2873

Abstract

Objective: to analyze the relationship between psychosocial stress dimensions and salivary cortisol in military police officers. Method: cross-sectional and analytical study with 134 military police officers. The Effort-Reward Imbalance (ERI) Model scale has been used to assess psychosocial stress. Salivary cortisol was collected in three samples. The following tests were used: Student's t-test, Mann-Whitney, ANOVA, Bonferroni, Kruskal-Wallis and Dunn. Pearson and Spearman correlation methods were used, as well as multiple linear regression. Cortisol at night showed an ascending statistical association with the psychosocial reward (p=0.004) and a descending association with the effort-impairment scores (p=0.017). Being part of the Special Tactical Operations Group (GATE) and the diastolic blood pressure explained 13.5% of the variation in cortisol levels on waking up. The sectors GATE, Special Patrol of the Elite Squad of the Military Police and Motorcyclists explained 21.9% of the variation in cortisol levels 30-minute after awakening. The variables GATE sector and Effort Dimension explained 27.7% of the variation in cortisol levels at night. Conclusion: it was evidenced that salivary cortisol variation was influenced by individual, labor and psychosocial variables.

Highlights

Police officers, all over the world, are one of the categories of workers at greatest risk of death and exposure to stress[1,2,3]
In view of the above, the objective of this study was to analyze the relationship between psychosocial stress dimensions and salivary cortisol levels in military police officers
Age, which was negatively related to cortisol levels on waking up in the current study, was positively correlated with these levels (r=0.14, p

Summary

Introduction

All over the world, are one of the categories of workers at greatest risk of death and exposure to stress[1,2,3]. The exposure and level of stress of the police officers have been pointed out as higher than those of other professionals due to the nature of the activities performed, the low remuneration and the work overload resulting from internal relations in the corporation[1]. Being repeatedly subjected to work stress can cause damage to physical and/or mental health when there is an organic vulnerability and an inappropriated form of evaluation and coping with the stressful event. A person with a greater need for control responds differently to work situations that require a lot of effort and low reward, which causes stress and activates several physiological axes of response to stress in the body[4,6]

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Discussion

Conclusion