Stress, coping and coherence in criminal police officers

Šiame straipsnyje apžvelgiami Lietuvos kriminalinės policijos pareigūnų streso ir jo įveikos tyrimo rezultatai. Tyrimas atliktas reprezentatyvioje, apie 9 proc. visų kriminalinėje policijoje dirbančių pareigūnų, imtyje (N=308). Tyrime siekta atskleisti labiausiai pareigūnų stresui įtakos turinčius veiksnius, dažniausiai pareigūnų naudojamas streso įveikos strategijas, jų sąsajas su vidine darna. Tikrintos lyties skirtumų, streso lygio sąsajų su skirtingomis streso įveikos strategijomis ir vidinės darnos rodikliais hipotezės. Tyrimo rezultatai leido skirti stipriausius ir silpniausius stresorius, atskleidė organizacinių veiksnių svarbą, vyrų ir moterų streso lygio ir naudojamų įveikos strategijų ypatumus, patvirtino aukštesnio lygio streso sąsajų su mažiau adaptyvių įveikos strategijų naudojimu ir žemesniais vidinės darnos rodikliais prielaidą.Officers confront the underside of our society on a daily basis. In the line on duty, they often see the worst of what mankind has to offer. Injury and death to others, to themselves, and to their comrades is frequent. Not only critical or traumatic incidents are all-too-familiar traits in the routine of the criminal police profession, they can also be emotionally and physically draining. Stress that results from administrative policy, bad management, personal financial situations, marital problems and many other frustrating conditions continue to jeopardize the health and safety of police officers. Although a number of studies have focused on police officers in Lithuania and abroad, the systematic study of stress among criminal police officers, especially in Lithuania, has been neglected. This study seeks to examine the prevalence and severity of stress in a sample of Lithuanian criminal police officers, to discover the perculiarities of their most commonly used coping strategies and inner sense of coherence. 308 officers (about 9% of the whole national criminal police force at the the time of the investigation) from four different locations (the largest cities in Lithuania) were inquired using Stressors Scale (Razaitiene, Birbilaite, Bandzeviciene, 2008), Sense of Coherence Scale (SOC – 13) (Antonovsky, 1987, adapted by Kazlauskas, 2006), and Stress Coping Questionnaire: Four Factors Model (Grakauskas, Valickas, 2006). According to the data gathered, a wide range of stressful events were scaled from least to most significant ones with respect to gender, location and professional experience. Factorial analysis (KMO=0,933) excluded 7 factors (i.e. groups of stressors), that explained 64,674% dispersion of a data. The most stressful events were related with organizational variables such as the following: work conditions (r=0,835, p<0,01), motivation (r=0,840, p<0,01) and interaction with colleagues and managers (r=0,806, p