Impact of occupational and psychological stress on police health in South India

Abstract

Background: Police personnel form an important occupational group who constantly work under stressful situations. Preventive programs in the government organizations and studies investigating the occupational stress among police officers in India, particularly in the state of Andhra Pradesh, are still limited. Materials and Methods: Demographic details such as age, educational qualification, years of service, and number of children etc of Demographic details such as age, educational qualification, years of service, and number of children etc of Male police constables (n = 123) working in the Bellampalli subdivision of Adilabad district of erstwhile Andhra Pradesh were captured. Details of height, weight, body mass index (BMI, kg/m2), blood pressure (BP), pulse, the status of addiction, and type of illness were extracted from the records. Descriptive statistics were calculated, and Chi-square test to find an association between categorical variables was performed using SPSS version 16. Results: About 72.4% of the constables were addicted to at least one habit such as alcohol consumption, smoking, and chewing smokeless tobacco and pan. Nearly 20.3% were addicted to chewing tobacco/pan followed by addition to alcohol consumption 14.6%. With the increase in age, the prevalence of hypertension also increased showing a significant association (systolic BP [SBP]: P = 0.001; diastolic BP [DBP]: P = 0.001). Similarly, higher BMI (SBP: P = 0.008; DBP: P = 0.001) and increased number of service years (SBP: P = 0.001; DBP: P = 0.001) were associated with higher prevalence of hypertension. Conclusion: Developing an adequate evaluation of the association between chronic diseases and mortality in addition to a hazard surveillance system for tracking the risks for occupational injury and illness among police officers should be considered.

Keywords

• hypertension
• police
• stress