| dc.description.abstract | Policing is considered one of the most stressful occupations which expose police officers to
occupational, organizational, and personal stressors. This is true in a country like Nigeria with
increased profiling of crime and peace-threatening activities, like kidnapping, ethnic crisis,
armed robbery, religious crisis, extra- judicial killing, political violence, and, of recent, the
Boko Haram saga.The stressful conditions that law enforcement officers are exposed to can
affect their work-related and physiological well-being. The studies conducted in Nigeria have
not assessed the knowledge of stress and coping mechanism among police officers.Therefore,
this study assessed stress experienced and coping mechanism among police officers in Ibadan
metropolis.
This study was a descriptive cross-sectional study which utilized quantitative method of data
collection using a pre-tested self-administered questionnaire. A multi stage sampling
technique was used to select 342 respondents; one out of five Local Government in Ibadan
metropolis, the police Divisional Headquarters and five police stations in Ibadan North Local
Government Area. Questionnaires items elicited information on knowledge of stress and
coping mechanism, prevalence of stress and coping mechanism of stress among police
officers. Knowledge was scored on a 13-point scale; scores of ≤ 6, ≥7 -10 and ≥11-13 were
classified as poor, fair and good knowledge respectively and coping mechanism was scored
on a 15 points scale; scores of 0-5, 6-10 and >10 were classified as good, fair and poor
coping mechanism. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, Chi-square test and
Fishers exact test at p=0.05.
The mean age of respondents was 42.1±14.4 years. Many (58.1%) of the respondents were
males, less than half (40.6%) of the respondents were within the age of 33 and 44 years and
majority (73.2%) of the respondents were of the Yoruba tribe.Majority (92.5%) of the
respondents had poor knowledge of stress with a mean knowledge score of 5.4±1.7 and mean
coping score of 5.0±3.0. Many (93.4%) reported prevalence of stress, more than half (53.1%)
of the respondents stated that they are sometimes uncomfortable with their weekly shifts
rotation.Most (93.8%) of the respondents stated that their coping techniques were effective
and good because it works best for them and make them healthy, while 6.2% of the
respondents said their coping techniques were not effective because they still perceive the
symptoms of stress.
This study showed that knowledge of stress was poor and respondents still perceived that
they experienced stress and its symptoms. Strategies such as training using teaching,
discussion and explanation to educate the police officers about stress and its coping
mechanism and advocacy to facilitate the construction of standard stress management centres
would be appropriate strategies to reduce stress and to increase the knowledge of police
officers on stressors and its coping mechanism. | en_US |
