Week 3

Question 1

What are the physiological and psychological definitions of police stress?

Answer 1

Stress is the automatic state that results when the body must make changes in order to adapt to a demand

Stress is a condition or feeling experienced when one perceives that demands exceed the personal and social resources they are able to mobilize

Question 2

What makes something stressful? (NUTS)

Answer 2

In policing, it must involve at least one of the following NUTS elements to be stressful

Novelty (something new you have not experienced before)

Unpredictability (something you have no way of knowing would occur)

Threat to the ego (your competence as a person is called into question

Sense of control (you feel you have little or no control over the situation)

Question 3

What are the common police stressors studied? What are the more realistic one?

Answer 3

Protests, traffic accidents, police chase

Paperwork, police partners, family issues

Question 4

What is the difference between imagined and experienced stress? How does this impact stress surveys? Why does that matter?

Answer 4

Imagined asks how stressful a certain situation would be, which increases answers to those popular stressors

Experience asked how often you have been stressed by these instances occurring to you, which increases answers to the realistic stressors

Results impact when and how stressors are mediated/treated so the kind of test you are using matters

Question 5

What are moderators of police stress? (5)

Answer 5

Training to deal with the stress

Experience with the stressor

Support from others

Personality

Coping strategies (problem vs. emotion focused, substance use)

Question 6

What is the definition of police stressors?

Answer 6

Events that police officers encounter that they perceive as harmful, threatening or challenging (emphasis on perceive)

Question 7

What are the 2 categories relating to perceptions of stress? How do some police psychologists study this?

Answer 7

Eustress, which is beneficial positive responses to stress (sense of meaning, improved performance, etc.) like in sports

Distress, which is negative stress with negative responses to it (fear, anxiety, etc.)

Some researchers work on ways to cognitively change how people perceive stress and circumstances so they respond positively rather than negatively

Question 8

What are the 2 categories relating to intensity of stress? Which is more important to research?

Answer 8

Acute stress, in the moment short lived stress where there is an immediate and intense physiological reaction

Chronic stress, ongoing repeated exposure to stressful situations creating a release of hormones that can cause long term wear and tear

Chronic is usually the root of officer distress and problematic consequences because it won’t just go away without intervention

Question 9

What are the 4 types of stressors? Is there any overlap?

Answer 9

Occupational stressors (shootings, domestic calls, murder)

Organizational stressors (inter and intra, poor relationships with peers, inadequate supervision, excessive paperwork)

Criminal justice stressors (lengthy court times, court in general, lenient sentences, defense lawyers)

Public stressors (public harassment, press accounts, quiet neighbors)

A lot of stressors can be caught between categories, like between organizational and occupational

Question 10

What are the three categories of consequences of stress on police officers?

Answer 10

Psychological consequences (depression, burnout, SUD, PTSD)

Physiological consequences (weight gain, stomach ulcers, cardiovascular disease, death)

Job-related consequences (low morale, absenteeism, turnover, problem performance)

Question 11

What consequences are the focus of research? Why? What does the research say?

Answer 11

Psychological and physiological are the big focuses that get the most funding

This is because police agencies care the most about it since it costs them the most money in leave and recovery

Research supports that police stress results in various consequences across all categories but contradictory findings are often reported across studies

Question 12

What is the person-environment fit theory of stress? (2)

Answer 12

The less compatible one is to their work environment, the more likely stress will be experienced

Some peoples personalities are not suited to high stress environments, which creates further stress

Question 13

What is the demand-control-support theory of police stress?

Answer 13

Individuals experiencing high job demands under conditions of low control and inadequate support will likely experience stress

Question 14

What is Selye’s Three-Stage GAS Model? (5)

Answer 14

This is less about conditions leading to stress and more about why in general people experience negative consequences when exposed to stressors under certain conditions

The General Adaptation Syndrome model can be broken down into 3 stages

Stage 1: Alarm (arousal, body defenses mobilized, fight/flight/freeze)

Stage 2: Resistance (body actively tried to resist stressors and attempts to adapt and return to normal using coping strategies based on intensity/severity of stressor)

Stage 3: Exhaustion (physical exertion and illness through inability to cope with demands)

Question 15

What are the 3 methods used to study police stress?

Answer 15

Self-reports

Physiological measurements

Meta-analysis

Question 16

What are self-report methods? (2)

Answer 16

Most commonly used

Includes both qualitative (interviews) and quantitative (questionnaires and checklists) approaches

Question 17

What are interviews? What are the advantages? (3) What are the disadvantages? (2)

Answer 17

Officers are asked to speak about the amount of stress they experience and/or the type of stress they experience

Advantages include: easy to implement, flexible and provides rich data

Disadvantages include: subjective and potentially biased, can be traumatizing (for police)

Question 18

What does the Klinger (2001) interview study demonstrate about police stress? (5)

Answer 18

Distributed checklists to officers involved in police shootings and interviewed them after

Checklists asked about their thoughts, feelings and perceptions before and during shooting

Also looked at those at 4 points after shooting from a day after to 3 months later

Follow-up interviews looked into the checklist results more thoroughly

Found feelings of fear were not connected (disproportionate) with the actual level of threat and even those who didn’t feel fear still felt they were in danger

Question 19

What are psychological questionnaires? What are some examples? (3) What are the advantages (3) and disadvantages (2)

Answer 19

Many available to assess various forms of police stress

Police Stress Survey, State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, LEO Stress Survey

Advantages: easy to use and distribute, can provide reliable valid and quantifiable measure, can be anonymous

Disadvantages: does not provide rich data, wording has an impact on result

Question 20

What did the Taylor & Bennell (2006) questionnaire survey on police stress of Ontario officers find? (2)

Answer 20

Used operational and organizational police stress questionnaires

Found organizational stress was the highest/most frequent stressor because those are the ones they experience/think about on a day to day basis

Question 21

What are physiological measures of police stress? What are the most common ones? (4) What are the advantages (1) and disadvantages (3)?

Answer 21

A variety of physiological approaches can be used to assess police stress

Heart rate (most common as it is easiest to measure), blood pressure, galvanic skin response, hormones (ideal but harder to measure)

Advantages: can provide direct reliable and quantifiable measures

Disadvantages: can be invasive, expensive and can be biased by non-stress factors (time of day, caffeine, diet)

Question 22

What did the Anderson et al. (2002 study on the heart rate of BC police officers find? (2)

Answer 22

Measure heart rates during 121 shifts while coding for minute-by-minute tasks of these officers

Found heart rate drastically went up and down throughout the shift depending on certain events (use of force, fight, confrontation)

Question 23

What is meta-analysis? (2) What are the advantages (3) and disadvantages (3)?

Answer 23

A statistical technique used to combine the results of numerous single primary studies that often come back with conflicting results

You can code for things to give more weight to larger/better studies so you can get an average and more accurate effect size

Advantages: getting easy to use, increases reliability of results and can factor in moderators

Disadvantages: cannot take into account qualitative info, no commonly accepted methods, requires primary studies to be rigorous and reliable

Question 24

What did the Aamodt & Stalnaker (2001) meta-analysis of police suicide rates find? (3)

Answer 24

Found that while comparing the police population to the general population, police suicide rates were much higher (18.1 per 1000 vs 11.7)

However, the police population is not comparable to the general population (more white, male, younger)

When the general population is accounted for these differences, it found that the police suicide rate is lower to the comparable rate (18.1 vs 21.89)

Question 25

What are the 2 primary ways of managing police stress? Which is more common?

Answer 25

Proactive strategies, designed to prevent the development of stress which is ideal as it reduces harm and impact

Reactive strategies, designed to alleviate consequences of stress when they happen

Reactive is more common because the costs and culture surrounding proactively addressing mental health

Question 26

What did the McCraty and Atkinson (2012) study on relaxation techniques do? (2) How did they do it? (1) What did they find? (4) What are the implications? (1)

Answer 26

Did a study on 65 officers using RCT with follow-ups pre and post test to test the effectiveness of Coherence Advantage Programs

The CAP was a program to enhance stress resilience and performance by giving officers the skills needed to regulate their stress responses with specific techniques

Measures stress with psychological surveys/interviews, physiological measures of HRV and blood pressure, and performance with scenario evaluations

Interviews showed positive differences between groups, with the test group having more coping skills, interpersonal relationships/skills and performance at work

Surveys pre and post training found significant improvement in emotions for the test group (depression, distress, peacefulness)

Performance results in scenarios showed some improvement with minting focus, making good decisions; communication, composure, etc.

Physiological results indicated relaxation techniques can impact arousal levels

Basically means this all can be taught before hand to mitigate stress and harmful impacts

Question 27

What did the Patterson et al. (2012) meta-analysis on the effectiveness of strategies do? (1) What did they find? (3) What are the implications? (3)

Answer 27

Looked at a wide range of 12 studies on veteran officers, recruits and civilians over 30 years with 10 interventions to determine what strategies were effective

Found all studies reported psychological outcomes from a wide range of balancing effect sizes

1/3 studies reported behavioral outcomes with mostly negative effect sizes

2 found physiological outcomes with mostly positive but small effect sizes

Interventions had no significant effect on psychological, behavioral or physiological outcomes

Results didn’t vary across potential moderators

The quality of primary studies is problematic