Shannon Wagner, Nicole White, Lynda R. Matthews, Christine Randall, Cheryl Regehr, Marc White, Lynn E. Alden, Nicholas Buys, Mary G. Carey, Wayne Corneil, Trina Fyfe, Elyssa Krutop, Alex Fraess-Phillips and Matthew H. Fleischmann
The purpose of this systematic review is to evaluate the extant literature on depression and anxiety disorders in police using a multinational data set to determine whether the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this systematic review is to evaluate the extant literature on depression and anxiety disorders in police using a multinational data set to determine whether the prevalence of these trauma-related disorders (TRMDs) is elevated in comparison to the general population.
Design/methodology/approach
Systematic review was employed in combination with best-evidence narrative synthesis to evaluate these hypotheses.
Findings
Despite wide variability in prevalence outcomes across the literature, strong evidence supports the hypothesis that the prevalence of depression is elevated in police, whereas moderate evidence supports the same hypothesis regarding anxiety. Preliminary evaluation of commonly examined predictive factors for each disorder demonstrated weak and inconsistent associations between these TRMDs and sociodemographic factors. No studies evaluated the relationship between incident-related factors (e.g. severity or frequency of exposure) and TRMDs, thus, at present, the literature on police is almost entirely unable to address the question of whether the prevalence of these disorders in police is influenced by exposure to work-related trauma.
Research limitations/implications
The findings highlight a critical need for future work to address incident-related factors in predicting symptoms of depression and anxiety in police samples to determine whether these disorders bear a unique relationship to work-related traumatic exposure. Such work will significantly benefit the design and implementation of successful prevention and intervention strategies in the workplace.
Originality/value
The present review provides a comprehensive synthesis of a highly variable literature, highlighting critical gaps in our current knowledge of TRMDs in police and suggesting numerous avenues for future study.
Details
Keywords
Anna Krzeminska, Joel Lim and Charmine E. J. Härtel
Occupational stress occurs in a variety of forms, types, and situations. Arguably, a certain level of stress can encourage productivity, ingenuity, and satisfaction. As…
Abstract
Occupational stress occurs in a variety of forms, types, and situations. Arguably, a certain level of stress can encourage productivity, ingenuity, and satisfaction. As occupational stress escalates, however, people’s capacity to deal with it diminishes, eventually compromising work performance and provoking people to express negative emotions. These negative aspects of stress are buffered to a certain extent by individual differences such as personality as well as external contextual factors such as the working environment. This chapter reports a study applying an affective events theory (AET) as a framework to investigate perceived stress in response to negative events in emergency services’ workplaces and the potential buffering effects of servant leadership, affective team climate, and psychological capital. An experience sampling methodology (ESM) was used to record daily cases of self-reported negative events experienced by participants over the three week data-collection period. A structured survey questionnaire independent of the ESM was also used to collect data from 44 emergency service operation members. The findings indicate that servant leadership behavior, affective team climate, and individual psychological capital all are significantly related to reduced perceived occupational stress in emergency service team members.
Details
Keywords
Jacquelyn Keaton, Kristen Jennings Black, Jonathan Houdmont, Emma Beck, David Roddy, Johnathon Chambers and Sabrina Moon
Community-police relations have gained increasing public attention during the past decade. The purpose of the present study was to better understand the relationship between…
Abstract
Purpose
Community-police relations have gained increasing public attention during the past decade. The purpose of the present study was to better understand the relationship between perceived community support and police officer burnout and engagement.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were gathered via online survey from 117 officers from a city police department in the Southeastern United States.
Findings
Community support was negatively correlated with burnout and positively correlated with engagement. Moreover, multiple regression analyses showed that community support explained significant incremental variance in most dimensions of burnout and engagement, above and beyond demographic factors and community stressors. Qualitative results showed that police officers had mixed perceptions of how they were viewed by the general public, with more negative than positive responses. However, officers felt more positively perceived in their own communities, but concerns were raised that national events affected the perceptions of officers even in positive relationships with their communities. Finally, officers felt that public perceptions impacted their job satisfaction, job performance and personal lives.
Practical implications
The results have practical implications for how to encourage positive interactions between officers and their community, with recommendations for both law enforcement leaders and civilians.
Originality/value
This study is one of the few that highlights the officers' perspective on how public perceptions affect their work. This is important in understanding how to maximize quality community interactions while minimizing conditions that would increase burnout.
Details
Keywords
Aristides I Ferreira, Luis F. Martinez, Cary Cooper and Diana M. Gui
Some underlying mechanisms regarding presenteeism still remain unclear, namely, the construct of “presenteeism climate” and the importance of “leadership” Leader-Member Exchange…
Abstract
Purpose
Some underlying mechanisms regarding presenteeism still remain unclear, namely, the construct of “presenteeism climate” and the importance of “leadership” Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) for presenteeism. In order to shed some light into this phenomenon, the purpose of this paper is to develop and apply a new scale of presenteeism climate.
Design/methodology/approach
In Study 1, the authors identified a pool of items from the literature and, in Study 2 (n=147) the authors tested 26 items that were pilot studied with exploratory factor analysis. In Study 3 (n=293) the authors tested a three-factor model – extra-time valuation, supervision distrust and co-workers competitiveness – with confirmatory factor analysis.
Findings
Results showed that LMX has a negative correlation with presenteeism climate. Study 3 also showed that this structure remained invariant with additional samples from employees working in hospitals from Ecuador (n=90) and China (n=237). Finally, the authors included suggestions for future studies to overcome the limitations of this research.
Practical implications
This study has implications for managers and academics, as it emphasizes the importance of favorable behaviors between leaders and employees in order to decrease presenteeism and its adverse consequences.
Originality/value
The main contribution consists of identifying dimensions of presenteeism climate and developing measures. Additionally, the authors contribute to the literature on leadership by studying the influence of LMX on presenteeism climate.