A Psychological Study of Stress, Personality and Coping in Police Personnel

CONTEXT: There have been few studies focusing on occupational/organizational causes of stress in police. Hardly any studies exist on personality traits and coping methods in this group of individuals. AIMS: To study the association of personality traits and coping methods to psychological stress in police personnel. SETTINGS AND DESIGN: This cross-sectional study was conducted among the constables and head constables working in the Police Department, Vizianagram town, Andhra Pradesh. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The study sample consisted of 150 police persons. The socio-demographic data was individually collected from them. General Health Questionnaire-28 (GHQ-28) was used for assessing psychological stress, Eysenck's Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) for personality traits, and Coping Checklist-1 (CCL-1) for eliciting coping methods. The statistical analysis was done using SPSS v 10 software. RESULTS: On screening by GHQ-28, 35.33% of the police were found to be having psychological distress. The socio-demographic variables showed no significant association to psychological stress. Personality traits such as neuroticism, psychoticism, and extroversion and coping methods like negative distraction and denial/blame showed statistically significant association (P<0.05) with psychological stress. The most commonly used coping methods across the sample were social support (72.55%), acceptance/redefinition (64.72%), and problem solving (60.46%). As measured by Pearson's correlation coefficient (r), there was evidence of linear association between certain personality traits and coping methods as well. CONCLUSIONS: The personality traits and coping methods have significant independent and interactive role in the development of high psychological stress in police persons, thus placing them at a high risk of developing psychiatric disorders.