The purpose of the study is to determine the prevalence of stress and to identify the occupational stressors among Lebanese police officers.
Operational Police Stress Questionnaire (PSQ-op) was addressed to 100 randomly selected male Lebanese Police officers. Twenty items from the PSQ-op were run through the principal component analysis to determine the most significant factors of stress and loading within each of the factors.
The results indicated that 59% of officers reported moderate stress level and 41% reported strenuous stress. Principal component analysis identified six independent factors or stress among Lebanese police officers explaining in total 72.1% of the total variance: excessive workload (30.6%), social-life time management (12.8%), occupational fitness (9.1%), success-related stress (8.6%), physical and psychological health (5.8%), and working alone at night (5.2%).
This research approach encountered some limitations so further research must: use a larger sample size, include female gender and identify other sources of stressors mainly organizational or job context stressors.
Addressing and understanding stress factors among Lebanese police officers helps improving awareness and developing individualized treatment strategies leading police officers to engage in stress-management training to learn coping strategies and use effective tools for preventing stress before it becomes chronic.
