The impact of attending alcohol-related incidents on police drinking patterns

Little research has been done examining the impact on police drinking patterns of routinely dealing with alcohol related incidents. The current study examined the drinking of a sample of employees of an Australian state police service (N = 4193) through the use of a survey including the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT [1]). The survey also requested officers to estimate the proportion and types of incidents to which they were called that involved alcohol. Analysis revealed that the median estimate, for all officers, of the proportion of incidents involving alcohol in their division was 50% to 74%. The median for operational officers was higher than that of non-operational officers. Operational officers estimated that 70% of public disturbances, 80% of domestic violence incidents, 70% of noise complaints, and 70% of assaults involved alcohol. From a possible range of 0 to 40, operational officers’ (n = 2941) mean AUDIT score was 7.07, while non-operational officers’ (n = 1014) mean AUDIT score was significantly lower at 5.48. Analysis revealed a significant relationship between dealing with alcohol related incidents and officers’ drinking patterns as measured by the AUDIT. Assault was the only type of incident to independently predict drinking behaviour. A positive correlation was seen between the proportion of assaults involving alcohol and AUDIT scores