The sources of stress, the symptoms of stress and anger styles as a psychosocial risk at occupational health and safety: A case study on Turkish police officers

Abstract

The present study aims at measuring the sources of stress, the symptoms of stress and anger styles of police officers as psychosocial risk factors. A survey was carried out on 5725 randomly selected police officers in a big city in Turkey. The questionnaire included some personal information. When collecting data, Mayerson's Stress Factor Scale was used to measure the sources of stress. The Psychological Symptom Checklist-SCL-90-R was used to measure the participants' psychological symptoms and the State Trait Anger Scale (STAS) is used to measure anger styles of police officers. When analyzing data, correlations and stepwise multiple regression analysis are used to examine the relationship.The findings of the present study have shown that there are meaningful relationships among the symptoms of stress, the sources of stress and anger. According to this pointing system, it has been found that the police officers got higher stress points from the Mayerson Stress Sources Scale when physical environment, job, social stress and self-expression are considered, and they were tended to have increased problems. Psychological symptoms are highly prevalent among Turkish Police officers. In the end, several suggestions have been made to the police departments to help the officers who are affected adversely by job stress. According to these findings, we suggest a more specific research to be performed in order to determine and prevent these stress factors among Turkish Police officers.