Occupational Stress among custodians of civic law: An exploratory study

Abstract

Purpose of the study: The purpose of this paper is to identify the factors responsible for creating occupational stress among West Bengal Police Officials. Design/methodology/approach – The authors employ an existing standardized scale on Occupational Stressors with some modifications resulting from pilot survey as well as in depth and focus group interviews. The researchers draw on a data set of 310 structured questionnaires covering four hierarchies from Sub Inspectors to ADC/ ASP and above from 5 districts and one commisionerate under West Bengal Police jurisdiction to understand their perceptions about the stressors that police officials often encounter while discharging their duties. Findings: A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) has confirmed the five constructs in the data set namely Organizational Stressors (OS), Hierarchical Stressors (HS), Situational Stressors (SS) and Environmental Stressors (ES) and Personal Stressors (PS). CFA suggested a good model fit with GFI>0.9, NFI>0.9, IFI>0.9 and CFI>0. Goodness of fit is initially analyzed through Chi-square value of our proposed model (2.81, df 73, p=.000). Research Implications: Police are supposed to maintain law and order of the society. On many occasions owing to some internal and external influence they are unable to deal with the situation those results into helplessness at their professional as well as personal life. The paper reveals the major occupational stressors and suggests various measures to deal with these effectively and reduce the negative impact of them.