Original Article
An epidemiologic study of occupational stress factors in Mumbai police personnel Abstract Introduction: Occupational stress is common to each and every organization at various levels of hierarchy. The police organization is no exception to this. Rather policing is widely recognized as more stressful than any other occupation, nature of work, irregular duty hours, and many more factors, which can trigger stress. The present study was done to highlight some of these stressful factors in Mumbai police. Materials and Methods: Simple as well as systematic random sampling technique was adopted to get equal representation from each zone as well as region from Mumbai police. Occupational stress index (OSI) questionnaire was prepared, pilot tested, and validated for screening stress. Result: We screened 276 policemen for occupational stress. Seventy‑three percent of them were in the 30–50 years age group, and most of them (49%) studied up to H.S.C. Ninety‑one percent were married and 56% had reported duty hours 12–16 h/ day. Seventy‑one percent were addicted to any of the substance. After screening we found 73% moderately stressed, whereas 18% highly stressed policemen. Sociodemographic factors which were age group (50– 58 years), duration of service in years (>25 years), duration of duty hours (>16 h/day), addiction habits, and number of monthly holidays (no holiday). We found role ambiguity, under participation, role overload, strenuous working condition, and unprofitability as predominant scales in OSI. So prevention as well as management of stress in policemen is the necessity of the current situation. This stress can be managed at organizational level by adopting right techniques, whereas at individual level by habituating right behavior and attitude. Key words: Policemen, sociodemographic factors, stress
INTRODUCTION “Indian Police” is an umbrella term, which denotes not only state police force of India but also various central police organizations, such as Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Border Security Force (BSF), Indo Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Rapid Police Force (RPF), and various other law enforcing agencies. Indian police completed more than 50 years of police of democratic, secular, and pluralistic society.[1]
Occupational stress is a dynamic condition in which an individual is confronted with opportunities, constraint, and or demand related to what she/he desires from which the outcome is perceived to be uncertain and important in relation to its employment.[2] Stress at work is the consequence of a combined exposure to the magnitude of factors in the work environment such as psychological, physiological, and social.[2] There is some degree of occupational stress, which is common to every organization at various levels of hierarchy. The police organization is no exception to the rule. Rather Policing is widely recognized as more stressful than any other occupation. Considering the difficult nature of police work and the stress it places on individuals. There is strong need to understanding the stress faced by policemen and their way of coping with these. They face strong job demands besides being constantly under political and media scrutiny, many of those demands cannot be met adequately. There are many professional and legal strictures that circumscribe the policing response, which can lead to frustration and this overload with job demands causes strain and stress in individual police officers.
Balaji D Almale, Ashok J. Vankudre, Seema S. Bansode‑Gokhe1, Vrushali K. Pawar2 Departments of Community Medicine, Dr. Vasatrao Pawar Medical College and Hospital, Research Centre, Nashik, 1Seth G. S. Medical College and KEM Hospital, Mumbai, Maharashtra, 2 Gynecologist and Obstetrician Siddhivi‑ nayak Hospital Nashik, Maharashtra, India For correspondence: Dr. Balaji D. Almale, Department of Community Medicine, Dr. Vasatrao Pawar Medical College and Hospital, Research Centre, Nashik, Maharashtra, India. E‑mail: drbalajial‑ [email protected]
Access this article online Website: www.ijoem.com DOI: 10.4103/0019-5278.146906 Quick Response Code:
In a survey of stress in police personnel, Mathur et al . [3] noted that job stress among Indian police remains a neglected area of research in India. Therefore, there is great need to explore this area for the wellbeing of police personnel. Psychological, physical, and work‑related stressors have been shown to have negative effect not only on mental and physical
Indian Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine - December 2014 - Volume 18 - Issue 3
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Almale, et al.: Occupational stress factors in Mumbai police personnel
wellbeing of an individual but also show negative effect on one’s occupational duties. In India only limited attention has been paid to the investigation of stress for public. Mumbai police personnel are under constant stress due to one or the other reason. Mumbai police also started some remedial measures of yoga art of living and stress‑busting workshop. All these are nothing but band aids employed to cover the huge bleeding wound that is the moral today’s policemen. So to look the sources of job stress in Mumbai police personnel is the aim of the study. Aims and objective: To study the level of occupational stress in Mumbai policemen and its association with some sociodemographic factors.
MATERIALS AND METHODS Mumbai for administrative purpose has been divided into three parts, namely, city, eastern suburb, and western suburb, which has been further divided into 12 zones. Each zone further divided into three to four divisions and each division has two to three police stations in it. To adequately represent samples from each part we applied multiage sampling. In each part we randomly selected one division and at divisional level we randomly selected one police station. After finalizing police station we included 20% of them in our study as per systematic random sampling so total 276 policemen (Class II and III) were included out of 1406. Prior permission from commissioner of Mumbai as well as informed consent from study participants was taken. The scale devised by Cooper et al. measures all the factors present in the work environment responsible for stress and use workers as the source of information by using questionnaire and interview technique and hence has been selected for the study.
The questionnaire comprises of Part I: Socio‑ demographic information and Part II: Occupational stress index scale (46 items) and each item was given a score as per the type of answer [Table 1].
RESULTS Table 1: Classification of level of stress index Category
Score
Low Moderate High
46-122 123-155 156-230
Table 2: Distribution of sociodemographic factors of Mumbai police personnel Sociodemographic factor
Category
Age (years)
≤30 31-40 41-50 50-58 Male Female Hindu Muslim Buddha Others Secondary Higher secondary Graduate and above Unmarried Married Divorced Nuclear Joint/extended Upper class Upper middle Lower middle 5-15 15-25 25-35 >35 8-12 12-16 >16 Class II Class III Present Absent None 1-3 days >3 days Government quarter Self Rent
Gender Religion
Educational status Marital status Type of family Socioeconomic status Duration of service in years
[4]
The questionnaire used is based on World Health Organization guidelines; Occupational stress index (OSI) Questionnaire[5] used in the present study consists of 46 items with five alternative responses. The items relate the relative components of job, which results in stress such as role over load, role ambiguity, role conflict, unreasonable group, political pressure, powerless, poor peer relationship, intrinsic improvement, low status, strenuous working condition, and unprofitability. A pilot study was done to strengthen the questionnaire on 45 policemen. After this we administered this questionnaire[6] to all the study participants (policemen Class II and III) at a time convenient to them in police station. 110
Hours of duty Class and rank Addiction habit Frequency of monthly holiday Residence
Frequency N=276 (100%) 17 (6.1) 66 (23.9) 136 (49) 57 (21) 262 (96) 12 (4) 203 (74) 9 (3) 51 (19) 13 (5) 100 (36) 134 (49) 42 (15) 22 (8) 252 (91) 2 (1) 209 (76) 67 (24) 39 (14) 91 (33) 146 (53) 43 (16) 130 (47) 92 (33) 11 (4) 76 (28) 155 (56) 45 (16) 22 (11) 254 (89) 195 (71) 81 (29) 125 (45) 126 (43) 35 (10) 148 (54) 114 (41) 14 (5)
Table 3: Distribution of sociodemographic factors of Mumbai police personal and occupational stress index Sociodemographic variable
Occupational stress index (%) Mild Moderate High (24) (202) (50)
P
Age group (years)
Contd...
Indian Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine - December 2014 - Volume 18 - Issue 3
Almale, et al.: Occupational stress factors in Mumbai police personnel Table 3: Contd... Sociodemographic variable
Occupational stress index (%) Mild Moderate High (24) (202) (50)
P
16 Addiction habits Present Absent Number of monthly holidays None 1-3 days >3 days
6 (35) 7 (11) 6 (4) 5 (9)
6 (35) 51 (77) 118 (87) 27 (47)
5 (30) 8 (12) 12 (9) 25 (44)
0.05
5 (13) 7 (8) 12 (8)
28 (72) 68 (75) 106 (73)
6 (15) 16 (17) 28 (19)
>0.05
5 (12) 13 (10) 6 (6)
28 (65) 104 (80) 70 (68)
10 (23) 13 (10) 27 (26)
An epidemiologic study of occupational stress factors in Mumbai police personnel Abstract Introduction: Occupational stress is common to each and every organization at various levels of hierarchy. The police organization is no exception to this. Rather policing is widely recognized as more stressful than any other occupation, nature of work, irregular duty hours, and many more factors, which can trigger stress. The present study was done to highlight some of these stressful factors in Mumbai police. Materials and Methods: Simple as well as systematic random sampling technique was adopted to get equal representation from each zone as well as region from Mumbai police. Occupational stress index (OSI) questionnaire was prepared, pilot tested, and validated for screening stress. Result: We screened 276 policemen for occupational stress. Seventy‑three percent of them were in the 30–50 years age group, and most of them (49%) studied up to H.S.C. Ninety‑one percent were married and 56% had reported duty hours 12–16 h/ day. Seventy‑one percent were addicted to any of the substance. After screening we found 73% moderately stressed, whereas 18% highly stressed policemen. Sociodemographic factors which were age group (50– 58 years), duration of service in years (>25 years), duration of duty hours (>16 h/day), addiction habits, and number of monthly holidays (no holiday). We found role ambiguity, under participation, role overload, strenuous working condition, and unprofitability as predominant scales in OSI. So prevention as well as management of stress in policemen is the necessity of the current situation. This stress can be managed at organizational level by adopting right techniques, whereas at individual level by habituating right behavior and attitude. Key words: Policemen, sociodemographic factors, stress
INTRODUCTION “Indian Police” is an umbrella term, which denotes not only state police force of India but also various central police organizations, such as Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Border Security Force (BSF), Indo Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Rapid Police Force (RPF), and various other law enforcing agencies. Indian police completed more than 50 years of police of democratic, secular, and pluralistic society.[1]
Occupational stress is a dynamic condition in which an individual is confronted with opportunities, constraint, and or demand related to what she/he desires from which the outcome is perceived to be uncertain and important in relation to its employment.[2] Stress at work is the consequence of a combined exposure to the magnitude of factors in the work environment such as psychological, physiological, and social.[2] There is some degree of occupational stress, which is common to every organization at various levels of hierarchy. The police organization is no exception to the rule. Rather Policing is widely recognized as more stressful than any other occupation. Considering the difficult nature of police work and the stress it places on individuals. There is strong need to understanding the stress faced by policemen and their way of coping with these. They face strong job demands besides being constantly under political and media scrutiny, many of those demands cannot be met adequately. There are many professional and legal strictures that circumscribe the policing response, which can lead to frustration and this overload with job demands causes strain and stress in individual police officers.
Balaji D Almale, Ashok J. Vankudre, Seema S. Bansode‑Gokhe1, Vrushali K. Pawar2 Departments of Community Medicine, Dr. Vasatrao Pawar Medical College and Hospital, Research Centre, Nashik, 1Seth G. S. Medical College and KEM Hospital, Mumbai, Maharashtra, 2 Gynecologist and Obstetrician Siddhivi‑ nayak Hospital Nashik, Maharashtra, India For correspondence: Dr. Balaji D. Almale, Department of Community Medicine, Dr. Vasatrao Pawar Medical College and Hospital, Research Centre, Nashik, Maharashtra, India. E‑mail: drbalajial‑ [email protected]
Access this article online Website: www.ijoem.com DOI: 10.4103/0019-5278.146906 Quick Response Code:
In a survey of stress in police personnel, Mathur et al . [3] noted that job stress among Indian police remains a neglected area of research in India. Therefore, there is great need to explore this area for the wellbeing of police personnel. Psychological, physical, and work‑related stressors have been shown to have negative effect not only on mental and physical
Indian Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine - December 2014 - Volume 18 - Issue 3
109
Almale, et al.: Occupational stress factors in Mumbai police personnel
wellbeing of an individual but also show negative effect on one’s occupational duties. In India only limited attention has been paid to the investigation of stress for public. Mumbai police personnel are under constant stress due to one or the other reason. Mumbai police also started some remedial measures of yoga art of living and stress‑busting workshop. All these are nothing but band aids employed to cover the huge bleeding wound that is the moral today’s policemen. So to look the sources of job stress in Mumbai police personnel is the aim of the study. Aims and objective: To study the level of occupational stress in Mumbai policemen and its association with some sociodemographic factors.
MATERIALS AND METHODS Mumbai for administrative purpose has been divided into three parts, namely, city, eastern suburb, and western suburb, which has been further divided into 12 zones. Each zone further divided into three to four divisions and each division has two to three police stations in it. To adequately represent samples from each part we applied multiage sampling. In each part we randomly selected one division and at divisional level we randomly selected one police station. After finalizing police station we included 20% of them in our study as per systematic random sampling so total 276 policemen (Class II and III) were included out of 1406. Prior permission from commissioner of Mumbai as well as informed consent from study participants was taken. The scale devised by Cooper et al. measures all the factors present in the work environment responsible for stress and use workers as the source of information by using questionnaire and interview technique and hence has been selected for the study.
The questionnaire comprises of Part I: Socio‑ demographic information and Part II: Occupational stress index scale (46 items) and each item was given a score as per the type of answer [Table 1].
RESULTS Table 1: Classification of level of stress index Category
Score
Low Moderate High
46-122 123-155 156-230
Table 2: Distribution of sociodemographic factors of Mumbai police personnel Sociodemographic factor
Category
Age (years)
≤30 31-40 41-50 50-58 Male Female Hindu Muslim Buddha Others Secondary Higher secondary Graduate and above Unmarried Married Divorced Nuclear Joint/extended Upper class Upper middle Lower middle 5-15 15-25 25-35 >35 8-12 12-16 >16 Class II Class III Present Absent None 1-3 days >3 days Government quarter Self Rent
Gender Religion
Educational status Marital status Type of family Socioeconomic status Duration of service in years
[4]
The questionnaire used is based on World Health Organization guidelines; Occupational stress index (OSI) Questionnaire[5] used in the present study consists of 46 items with five alternative responses. The items relate the relative components of job, which results in stress such as role over load, role ambiguity, role conflict, unreasonable group, political pressure, powerless, poor peer relationship, intrinsic improvement, low status, strenuous working condition, and unprofitability. A pilot study was done to strengthen the questionnaire on 45 policemen. After this we administered this questionnaire[6] to all the study participants (policemen Class II and III) at a time convenient to them in police station. 110
Hours of duty Class and rank Addiction habit Frequency of monthly holiday Residence
Frequency N=276 (100%) 17 (6.1) 66 (23.9) 136 (49) 57 (21) 262 (96) 12 (4) 203 (74) 9 (3) 51 (19) 13 (5) 100 (36) 134 (49) 42 (15) 22 (8) 252 (91) 2 (1) 209 (76) 67 (24) 39 (14) 91 (33) 146 (53) 43 (16) 130 (47) 92 (33) 11 (4) 76 (28) 155 (56) 45 (16) 22 (11) 254 (89) 195 (71) 81 (29) 125 (45) 126 (43) 35 (10) 148 (54) 114 (41) 14 (5)
Table 3: Distribution of sociodemographic factors of Mumbai police personal and occupational stress index Sociodemographic variable
Occupational stress index (%) Mild Moderate High (24) (202) (50)
P
Age group (years)
Contd...
Indian Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine - December 2014 - Volume 18 - Issue 3
Almale, et al.: Occupational stress factors in Mumbai police personnel Table 3: Contd... Sociodemographic variable
Occupational stress index (%) Mild Moderate High (24) (202) (50)
P
16 Addiction habits Present Absent Number of monthly holidays None 1-3 days >3 days
6 (35) 7 (11) 6 (4) 5 (9)
6 (35) 51 (77) 118 (87) 27 (47)
5 (30) 8 (12) 12 (9) 25 (44)
0.05
5 (13) 7 (8) 12 (8)
28 (72) 68 (75) 106 (73)
6 (15) 16 (17) 28 (19)
>0.05
5 (12) 13 (10) 6 (6)
28 (65) 104 (80) 70 (68)
10 (23) 13 (10) 27 (26)
