Impact of job demands on police stress response-the roles of basic psychological needs and job autonomy
- PMID: 36471297
- PMCID: PMC9724338
- DOI: 10.1186/s12889-022-14758-6
Impact of job demands on police stress response-the roles of basic psychological needs and job autonomy
Abstract
Background: Police officers are a high-stress group with special job characteristics, and the Chinese police management system places particularly high demands on police officers. Whether the influence of job demands on officers' job burnout can be deduced to general stress response needs to be verified. Based on the JD-R model, the study aims to explore the impact of job demands on police stress response, whether job autonomy as a job resource has a moderating effect, and whether basic psychological needs mediate this effect.
Methods: A total of 251 police officers in a district-level public security bureau of China, were surveyed using Chinese-language versions of the Job Demands Scale, the Stress Response Scale, the Job Autonomy Scale, and the Basic Psychological Needs Scale. The mediating effect of basic psychological needs and the moderating effect of job autonomy were tested by regression analysis and bootstrap test.
Results: Job demands increase police officers' stress response, and job autonomy does not play a buffer role but enhances this impact, and job demands can partially reduce the police stress response through the satisfaction of basic psychological needs, that is, there is a masking effect of basic psychological needs.
Conclusions: Adjusting and optimizing the ratio of job demands and autonomy in police work to provide high guidance under high demands is of great value to reduce the negative stress responses among police officers.
Keywords: Basic psychological needs; Job autonomy; Job demands; Police officers; Stress response.
© 2022. The Author(s).
Conflict of interest statement
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Figures
References
-
- Boland GM, Salami T. The Mental Health and Service Use of Texas Law Enforcement Officers [J] J Police Crim Psychol. 2020;36(2):288–294. doi: 10.1007/s11896-020-09419-6. - DOI
-
- Dai T. Police occupational characteristics, police psychological stress response and police physical and mental health [J] J Shanghai Publ Secur Higher Publ Secur School. 2003;3(5):12.
-
- Johnson S, Cooper C, Cartwright S, et al. The Experience of Work-Related Stress across Occupations [J] J Manag Psychol. 2005;20(2):178–187. doi: 10.1108/02683940510579803. - DOI
-
- Mengsheng C, Qiang T. The Study on the Police Psychological Stress and Law Enforcement Behavior Under COVID-19 Epi-demic [J] J Jiangsu Police Inst. 2020;35(05):74–81.
Publication types
MeSH terms
LinkOut - more resources
Full Text Sources