Stress and coping among police personnel in South India

ABSTRACT

Background:

Police personnel experience the highest levels of stress due to the nature and demands of work. Though many researchers have studied these variables quantitatively, there is a lack of qualitative study, particularly in India.

Methods:

A qualitative study has been carried out to explore the stress and coping strategies of police personnel. This study conducted in-depth interviews with ten police personnel and three focus group discussions with 22 police personnel.

Results:

Thematic analysis revealed five themes: family stressor, personal stressor, work stressor, and adaptive and maladaptive coping. Inability to take leave, multi-tasking, unscheduled excessive working hours, inability to spend time with the family members, and lack of basic amenities to meet personal hygiene were significant factors for their high level of stress.

Conclusion:

The results reinforce the need for mitigating the impact of stress by using positive coping strategies and social support resources, which could be achieved through capacity building and mental health programs.

Stress is a unique and dynamic phenomenon. Stress has a multi-dimensional impact on the physical, psychological, sensory, interpersonal, and cognitive aspects. The stress concept has been studied by various researchers and elaborated in models like General Adaption Syndrome Stress Model,[1] the person in work environment fit[2] that, enabling a better understanding of the construct of stress. Researchers often classified psychological stress as emotional reactions, including anxiety, depression, burnout, job alienation, hostility, tension, anger, nervousness, irritability, and frustration.[3]

Ismail et al. defined occupational stress as inconsistency between a work environment’s demands and an individual’s capacities to meet these demands.[3] The police occupation is one of the most stressful jobs with unique difficulties and challenges such as prolonged working hours and the inability to manage time. The status of the police force in India paints a challenging scenario due to a lack of staff strength and an increasing number of crimes. The national data reveals that the Indian police and civil ratio is 138:100,000. This ratio brings India to the fifth-lowest police-civilian ratio in the world.[4] As far as the working scenario is concerned, the Indian police are overstretched due to various factors and often struggle to bridge and balance this divide. Their workload is incomparable because of the low police-civilian ratio and the added responsibility which police are supposed to shoulder. The stressors include certain unpredictable job situations, investigation of crime scenes, undercover operations, fear of life and death, dealing with death or injuries of others, mass protests, and many more. In recent days, police organizations demand more and more from their workforce than in earlier days due to changes in society’s structure and the needs of changing times.[5] These changes have brought drastic changes like prolonged work time, multi-tasking responsibilities, frequent shifts in duties, and work culture creating many adjustments and demands on their workforce.[5] In the long run, police personnel experience higher morbidity and mortality rates, higher rates of coronary disease and higher rates of alcohol abuse and clinical depression than the general population.[6] Unfortunately, these issues are not considered much in the police stress assessment.[7-9] In addition to these issues, contemporary police work involves pressure both in terms of professional and family, dual responsibilities for women police, use of technology, body image-related issues, media, and political pressure. By examining the facts mentioned above, it becomes imperative to understand the stress and coping strategies of the police personnel. Hence, this study aims to fill the lacuna through qualitative exploration of police personnel stress and coping phenomena.

METHODS

The study adopted a qualitative approach to explore police personnel’s stress and coping strategies. The study purposively recruited police personnel from the west zone of Tamil Nadu Police. This zone consists of nine districts; among these districts, Coimbatore City, Erode, and Krishnagiri Districts were selected considering the sociodemographic representation. The designation of the participants in the study ranged from constable to inspectors because they mainly represent the police system in India. Ten constables, seven head constables, eight subinspectors, and seven inspectors participated in in-depth interviews and focus group discussion (FGD) (participant profiles were depicted in Table 1).

Table 1.

Participant profile

Characteristic	Sub-category	In-depth interview (frequency (%))	FGD (frequency (%))
Number of participants		10 (In-depth interview)	9 (FGD-1)
			6 (FGD-2)
			7 (FGD-3)
District	Coimbatore City	4 (40)	9 (40.9)
	Erode	4 (40)	6 (27.3)
	Krishnagiri	2 (20)	7 (31.8)
Gender	Male	6 (60)	8 (36.4)
	Female	3 (30)	14 (63.6)
	Transgender	1 (10)	0
Educational qualification	SSLC	1 (10)	0
	Under graduation	6 (60)	16 (72.7)
	Postgraduation	3 (30)	6 (27.3)
Marital status	Single	1 (10)	4 (18.2)
	Married	8 (80)	17 (77.3)
	Divorced	1 (10)	1 (4.5)
Residence	Urban	7 (70)	7 (31.8)
	Rural	3 (30)	15 (68.2)
Designation	Constable	3 (30)	7 (31.8)
	Head constable	2 (20)	5 (22.7)
	Subinspector	2 (20)	6 (27.3)
	Inspector	3 (30)	4 (18.2)
Work shift	Day	4 (40)	1 (4.5)
	Both	2 (20)	10 (45.5)
	Not fixed	4 (40)	11 (50)
Age in years (mean+SD)		44.38+8.89	41.71+5.46
Working hours (mean+SD)		12.38+3.85	15.47+2.67
Work experience (median)		18 (11.3, 29.8)	14 (11, 19)
Married years (median)		13 (8, 27.3)	15 (8, 19)
Income (median)		53000 (33750, 74500)	54000 (50000, 64000)

Interview design

The interview schedule was used for in-depth interviews and FGD, which the researcher (first author) developed based on the literature review. The initial validation of the interview schedule was done by the co-researchers (second and third authors) and, later, by two other mental health professionals (one psychiatrist and one clinical psychologist). This schedule elicits the police personnel’s stressors and coping strategies. Sample questions are described in Figure 1. The duration of each interview was 30-45 min.

Figure 1.

Semi-structure interview schedule

Procedure

The data collection was carried out through in-depth interviews and FGD. An in-depth interview helped to understand the information essential to conceptualise specific data in the frame of reference.[10] FGD is a research technique used in a group of individuals gathered by the researcher (s) to discuss an individual’s experiences, beliefs and perceptions through a structured interaction.[11] In-depth interviews and FGD were essential to understand the police personnel’s stressors and coping strategies. Data collection was carried out between November 22, 2019 and completed by February 17, 2020. The FGD and in-depth interviews were audiotaped and transcribed.

Data analysis

The thematic approach was used to analyze the interview or discussions. The study used systematic steps to arrive at themes to analyze more extensive data. The audiotapes (recorded audio) were transcribed and read multiple times before coding to become more familiar and well versed with the data. Inductive coding was applied during the analysis. The researcher coded the data. Themes and subthemes were discussed and reframed with the help of the co-researchers (second and third authors). Investigator triangulation was carried out to refute the dataset, where researchers from various disciplines became involved. Five phases of Braun and Clarke’s phases of thematic analysis followed. The Atlas-ti software was used for qualitative data analysis.

Ethics

Before any interview or discussion, the researcher has ensured that written consent as per Helsinki Declaration, 2000 (for both participation and voice recording) was taken from participants and, confidentiality and anonymity were maintained. The participants were allowed to withdraw their participation at any point. This study was carried out as a part of a Ph. D. dissertation. The NIMHANS Ethics committee had approved the protocol of the Ph. D. study.

RESULTS

The participant sociodemographic profile of the participants is depicted in Table 1. This study has explored the police personnel stressors and coping strategies. A total of five number themes were found that are depicted in Table 2.

Table 2.

Major themes and subthemes

Theme	Subtheme
Family stressor	Family relationship issues
	Less time with a family member
	Living away from family
	Not fulfilling the family roles and responsibilities
	Unable to find prospective match for self/family members
Personal stressor	Financial issues
	Health problems
	Psychological problems
	Work-life imbalance
	Gender specific issues
Work stressor	Discrimination in workplace
	Problems in the work environment
	Duty-related problems
	Organizational issues
	Problems from other departments
	Problems from senior officers
Adaptive coping	Individual level adaptive coping
	Family level adaptive coping
	Social level adaptive coping
Maladaptive coping	Individual level maladaptive
	Family level maladaptive coping

Theme 1: Family stressor

Subtheme –Family relationship issues:

The Family stressors include spending less time with a family member, living away from family, not fulfilling the family roles and responsibilities like taking care of family members and finding a prospective match for self/family members. It occurs due to the negative attitude towards the police personnel. Participants reported that stress initiated from not spending time with the family members (children, spouse, and parents) and not being a part of the family during auspicious and inauspicious events, like childbirth, anniversary, marriage, or death of a family member. It was revealed that the spouse and children used to get less time to spend with police personnel, which has emerged either due to giving minimal importance to spending time with family or not having free time to think about the family or working in faraway places, excessive work commitments, and not having holidays. Furthermore, it worsens when family members like spouse or family members are not willing to live with police partner, family or spouse exclude the police personnel from the family rituals/functions/gathering, suspect them to have extramarital affairs, not cooperating for an intimate relationship, the prevalence of divorce, and indulge in excessive money. Significantly, it affects the women police personnel more than their male counterparts.

Mrs A, 38-year-old married female, says, “I had a love marriage and could not fulfil duties as a wife due to my job commitments. It created many family issues. Hence, my husband asked me to choose either job or marital life; I replied that both were equal. However, he and his family were unhappy, and he divorced me”.

Theme 2: Personal stressor

Police personnel experiences stress from certain individual aspects, such as their financial issues and imbalance in the work-life aspects. These aspects are often personally felt by the police personnel and impact various aspects of their lives. Personal stressor has various subthemes, which are described below. The subthemes are as follows:

Subtheme – Financial issues:

It is a common stressor for most police personnel due to a lack of savings, spending on substance consumption, children’s education, festivities, housing, marriage expenses, medical expenses, travel expenses, and an inability to get a loan during emergencies.

Subtheme – Health problems:

Participants reported that not maintaining proper health is also a significant cause of stress. They reported having muscle/body pain, muscle stiffness, disturbance in appetite and biological needs, frequent giddiness, allergies, hair fall, headache, non-communicable diseases like hormonal imbalance, diabetes mellitus hyper/hypotension, hyperlipidemia, indigestion, body weight-related issues, sustaining injuries, kidney stones, difficulty in initiating sleep, stomach burning, and ulcer.

Mr B, 58-year-old married male, says, “When I entered the police service, I was the fittest person in my batch, but later, many of us developed health issues due to our work schedule”.

Subtheme – Psychological problems:

Participants described stress creating psychological issues like anger, confusion, irritability, lack of self-confidence, loneliness, mental/physical exhaustion, preoccupation with the job, and using substance/s like alcohol.

Subtheme – Work-life imbalance:

They reported a lack of adequate time for personal needs such as regular meals, exercise, recreational activities, and an inability to progress in their careers. Performing multiple roles on the professional front and balancing family life was even more difficult for women police personnel/officers due to self/family expectations in the Indian families.

Mrs A, 38-year-old married female, says, “Every day, I travel 25 km to reach my work area. Hence, I must travel early in the morning and prepare food for the family members. After my work, I used to reach home at around 10.30 PM. I freshen up, clean the house & sleep around 11.30 PM. Sometimes I have to wake up due to phone calls. Again, I have to wake up the next morning at 5.30 AM. Many days, I used to wake up and continuously check the time. Despite having less sleep, we have to work continuously throughout the day. My mother-in-law doesn’t understand my struggle, but she helps me”.

Subtheme – Gender-specific issues:

Particularly for women, strenuous physical jobs during menstruation time, fertility-related issues, being pregnant, attending to maternity needs, nursing mothers, not considering gender for specific tasks/duties, and gender discrimination at the workplace are major stressors. All the female participants reported this role multiplicity and high expectations from families in a patriarchal context.

Mrs A, 40-year-old married female, says, “Males can ignore the family role and responsibilities, but females can’t. If we cannot meet the expectations, the family/community members blame us a lot. We as females struggle a lot to balance both”.

Theme-3: Work stressor

This is a kind of stress created due to the police personnel’s work-related aspects. It consists of six subthemes, discrimination-related stressor, work environment stressor, duty-related stressor, stressor from other departments and public, organizational stressor, and stress due to senior officers (subthemes were explained in Figure 2).

Figure 2.

Association of police work stress themes and subthemes

Subtheme – Discrimination in the workplace:

Bullying, discrimination in assigning a job, granting leave, gender, caste, religion, designation, insulting others, and using abusive language.

Subtheme – Problems in the work environment:

This includes a lack of a place to rest and maintain hygiene, standing for a prolonged period, and working in extreme weather conditions.

Mr B, 58-year-old married male, says, “Often for out-post duty, we have few pairs of uniforms. It gets dirty in a few days. After that, we have to use the same. The dirty clothing leads to low confidence in approaching the public and interacting with friends. Timely meals and sleep, cleanliness, and good habits will reduce stress, but it does not happen”.

Subtheme – Duty-related problems:

These include the accused not revealing the truth, protection (‘bandobast’) duty along with other regular duties, traffic control, handling accused with weapon and riots, investigating white-collar/technological crime, handling child sexual abuse/murder cases, receiving compulsive work assignments, and handling extreme or sensitive issues. They need to perform the unscheduled duty, perform job/duty with inexperienced teammates, be blackmailed by someone, work in a life-threatening situation, complete the scheduled task on time, lack decision-making power and have limited time to complete the task.

Mr H, 48-year-old married male, says, “Sometimes after arresting the accused, we don’t know how they, their family & community will respond. Sometimes they may attempt to end their life. These kinds of issues are volatile. Hence, until the accused is handed over to the respective authority, police teammates are incredibly stressed”.

Subtheme – Organizational issues:

This includes frequent transfer, delay in sanctioning leave, inadequate staffing, unable to seek the support of higher officials due to multiple hierarchies, not following duty protocol, insufficient salary for the quantum of work, no pension scheme, the salary difference between the identical designation, under stimulating environment, not acknowledging the hard work and excessive workload. Additionally, frequent job transfers are highly stressful. This transfer occurs due to punishment, elections, and promotions. It impacts the relationship, roles, and responsibilities of the police personnel in the family and leads to a lack of proper accommodation and adjustment issues in newly posted areas. These transfers also impact the children’s education. The poor equipment and infrastructure like inadequate transportation facility, attending duty without adequate protective equipment, especially during the night, and lack of a place to take a break/rest in between work are all significant stressors.

Subtheme – Problems from other departments and the public:

Police work involves coordination with various departments/institutions like schools, hospitals, transport, court, and other organizations. It was revealed that working with hospitals, courts, politicians, and the media is complex due to a lack of cooperation or being compelled to do a particular task, using abusive language, and not being shown respect. They also said that the negative portrayal of police, like asking for favors, corruption, and blackmailing, leads to stress.

Mr I, 38-year-old married male, says, “Even though we are police, we have to pay corruption to hospitals/courts for getting reports. If not, we wouldn’t get reports or have to wait for a long time or delay in doing certain procedures”.

The public also creates stress by non-cooperation/misbehaving, discriminating against the police during the provision of services, having an adverse opinion towards the police coupled with the public’s general lack of awareness about rules and regulations and disrespecting their enforcement of duty.

Subtheme – Problems from senior officers:

The participant reports that they get stressed due to the superior officers misusing their authority when dealing with the subordinates (e.g., making them run their errands), senior officers not knowing the subordinate’s background details like their problems, family details, and frequent change or reassigning the task after puttg efforts. Additionally, being targeted in the work environment, working with less qualified and inexperienced senior officers, and working with less motivated/responsible senior officers are stressors. Furthermore, lack of interpersonal relationships like poor understanding/adjustment, comparison between the teammates, highlighting mistakes/faults, gossiping, and inability to trust create stress among police personnel.

Participants reported their coping and how well the individuals handled the situation better from the data coping in adaptive and maladaptive coping. Maladaptive coping is often leading to problems for the person. The details of the types of coping are explained below [Figure 3].

Figure 3.

Association of police stress themes and subthemes

Theme-4: Adaptive coping

This helps the individuals to handle stress positively.

Subtheme – Individual-level adaptive coping: Participants reported that individually, coping to avoid stress was solution-oriented, following religious rituals, ignoring the minor issues, maintaining a smile on their face, physical fitness and grooming, meditation, and yoga. These strategies were used more as an anticipatory coping method to reduce the stress faced in day-to-day life, whereas after the stress is triggered, participants accept the situation and become solution-oriented rather than problem-oriented. They try to find the root cause of the problems. They were patient and would take the issues lightly, believing that this would pass. They were more humorous and appreciative of others. Other coping strategies include singing, dancing in their personal space, spending time with close ones (dining, entertainment, and travel), sleeping, reading books, decorating the house, and ventilating to someone they trust.

“After joining this profession, I used to feel proud and strictly followed the rules, and always advised people around me. After a few years of experience, I have learned a lot. I alone will not be able to change the system. I have to accept my friend, community, and colleagues for what they are. I humorously talk to people around me”.

Subtheme – Family level adaptive coping: Participants reported that to reduce their stress levels, they spent time with their spouse, children, pets, and family members, like having meals together whenever possible and being intimate with their spouse. In case of any interpersonal relationship issues with the spouse or the family member, the participants used to gift, cajole, help members (e.g., providing timely help such as providing vehicle key as well as require accessories at the right time), try to explain the situations, seek other family member’s support to the resolve the issues.

During the FGD, one participant reported that “While I am stressed, I try to help my family members in minor activities like giving them a bike ride to the supermarket, tying the shoelace for my child before he leaves for school in the morning, spending quality time with a partner and loved ones.”

Subtheme – Social level adaptive coping: As part of anticipatory social coping, the participants used social service and volunteering activities like helping the poor, services in religious places such as donating resources, doing voluntary work and periodic monasticism. These activities often helped them feel satisfied enough and deal with their occupational stressors. Additionally, they also spent time with friends in activities like going to movies, shopping, picnic, group prayers, shared their problems with friends to identify solutions or as a part of the ventilation process. They also engaged in their hobbies and areas of interest to reduce their stress.

Mr A, 44-year-old married male, says, “For last ten years, I used to wear ‘malai’ (Garland), i.e., 48 days penance and devotion, used to follow most rituals like fasting, being kind to others, not smoking, etc., This gave me a sense of self-control and calmness from within”.

Theme-5: Maladaptive coping

It is an inadequate and harmful way to deal with problems, often leading to more problems.

Subtheme – Individual-level maladaptive: Individual-level maladaptive coping includes acting unwell, becoming socially detached, talking to self, neglecting personal hygiene, becoming verbally abusive, using substances, engaging in gambling, and rash driving. Few participants reported that some of their teammates used to have suicidal or self-harm thoughts due to prolong loneliness and the stressful work environment. It led to them behaving rudely with others and not following the job protocols.

Mr B, 58-year-old married male, says, “While I’m stressed, I used to take leave without informing authorities. I then prefer staying alone in a separate room. Generally, I do not talk to others and stop taking food. I had also damaged TV and two mobile phones during these episodes of emotional distress”.

Subtheme – Family level maladaptive coping: This included behaving rudely with family members, blaming, or finding mistakes with family members for certain minor issues, breaking the objects in the house, disturbing the spouse while they sleep, moving away from the house without informing, not allowing spouse’s family member into the house, and not maintaining the family rituals.

DISCUSSION

It is evident from the results that family stressor is one of the most significant stressors. Current research found that police personnel often require family and senior officers’ support, similar to earlier research conducted in India, China, and the US.[12-14] Predominantly, women were expected to prioritize family roles and responsibilities. However, it was often not possible for the women police because of their excessive work commitments and job nature, and it resulted in difficulties and complete disregard for family chores, which often led to friction in the family relationship. It was also found that most women reported living a life of struggle because of their dual commitments.[15] Irrespective of the gender, police personnel faced issues like lack of family, and personal time, difficulty in finding a suitable match for themself and their family members due to stigma and stereotype that police personnel would not be able to look after the family (due to frequent transfers and negative attitude towards police) or police are being corrupted. Due to the uncertain job nature of the police personnel find issues difficulties in establishing and sustaining their intimate relationship. It was found that often prolonged stress increases the police personnel’s level of family disengagement and domestic violence. The results were similar to studies conducted among police personnel.[16] The analysis also reported significant financial constraints due to low remunerations resulting in a lack of economic freedom and instability in their family life.

Personal stressors are related to personal aspects of police personnel, like managing time and health-related issues. The thematic analysis reported that stress led to certain conditions like headaches, muscle/body pain, and non-communicable diseases such as hormonal imbalance, diabetes mellitus, hyper/hypotension, and hyperlipidemia. These results were similar to studies conducted in India, Greece, and the US. Further, studies conducted among police personnel on non-communicable disorders like abnormal obesity, hypertension, resistance to insulin, stroke and type-2 diabetes; musculoskeletal issues like body pain, joint pain; problems related to vision were seen among police personnel across the globe.[12,16-19] The study found that police personnel often get stressed due to anger, loneliness, mental/physical exhaustion, being preoccupied with the job, and use/abuse of alcohol and tobacco; this was corroborated with earlier findings observed in similar studies, which found that most of the time, police personnel had work-life imbalance due to various factors like excessive workload, poor time management, lack of insight which resulted in having very few friends/relations, body weight-related issues, strain in the relationship, lack of social and emotional support and poor life satisfaction.[20,21] The present study’s policewomen also reported having gender-specific stressors in their work area due to factors like non-cooperativeness from family/public/work environment. Higher officers’ negative attitudes, the perceived need to prove their competency, underestimation of physical abilities, and sense of being inadequate to influence others were the common personal stress among police personnel. Similar results were seen among the police personnel from US and India.[15,17]

Predominantly work stress was expressed due to discrimination/insult, demanding work environment, challenging duties, difficulty in working with inter-department collaborations, lack of equipment, infrastructure and system-level concerns.[22,23] The present study results identified similar themes of police work stressors. In reflection on this study, findings and other studies conducted in India also highlighted that the stressors in the work environment were primarily due to standing for prolonged hours, lack of a proper place to rest, and maintaining hygiene.[7] The studies conducted in Africa and India[24,25] revealed that duty-related stressors such as multi-tasking, working in sensitive/life-threatening situations, investigating a critical case, and handling the accused also added to the work pressure of the police personnel. The same has been replicated in the current study as well. The subtheme of stressors from system-level issues reported in India and worldwide was the same as the present study results.[25,26] It included inadequate staff strength, lack of resources, inconsistent leadership, delayed promotion, organizational stress, and non-cooperative colleagues who do not follow duty protocol or manipulate the system for their gains. The lower rank police personnel expressed higher stress due to the senior officer’s lack of empathy and inability to handle subordinates’ issues. The results also revealed that verbal abuse, name-calling, and shaming in public were commonly prevalent. Interestingly, most of them revealed that senior officers were not aware of their subordinate’s issues and only focused on the things on the professional front, resulting in a lack of empathy, connectedness, and mistrust, resulting in hesitation from lower rank personnel to seek help for their grievances.

The police personnel reported coping in both adaptive and maladaptive ways. It was found that most police personnel try to find the root cause of the problem and plan and prepare to face any challenging situation.[27,28] With more professional experience, they learn to reduce their expectations, forget the painful incidents, and enjoy the present situations. However, they may resort to maladaptive coping strategies like substance use, gambling, and blaming others in severe distress.

While comparing the paramilitary and military personnel’s stress with police personnel’s stress, police personnel were found to have higher stress due to prolonged working hours which often lead to poor time management and spending lesser time with family, to an extent where even though they may be residing near their hometown, they still would not partake in family and social events, political pressure, maintaining a relationship with the public, people’s negative attitude (stigma) towards police, and lack of a place to maintain hygiene.[7,8,19]

CONCLUSION

Police personnel experience a significant level of stress in their current work scenario. With its qualitative narratives, this study shows an insight into their lives’ stressors and coping mechanisms. Most of the study results concurred with other qualitative studies available in the existing literature. Therefore, future research shall focus more on action-based research and advocacy for mental health protection and promotion of the police workforce of the nation.

Financial support and sponsorship

Nil.

Conflicts of interest

There are no conflicts of interest.