Police Stress in the Swedish Context: Development and Psychometric Properties of the Police Stress Identification Questionnaire

Abstract

Policing is recognised as a stressful occupation. Stress is known to correlate with health problems. This study aimed to extend the available police stress measures and provide an instrument to measure the extent to which different stressors are perceived in general Swedish police work using the Police Stress Identification Questionnaire (PSIQ). The sample comprised patrolling police officers from 20 local police districts or units in all seven regions in Sweden (n=539). The 42 items of the PSIQ were analysed using exploratory factor analysis, and the factor structure was tested on the second random half of the data using confirmatory factor analysis. The final model comprised 40 items that were loaded on five factors. Future studies should focus on a broader range of stressors and on populations other than patrolling police officers.

Keywords

• Factor structure
• health
• police officers
• stress
• Factorstructure
• policeofficers