ABSTRACT

Police officers, and specifically women officers, report elevated mental disorder rates relative to the general population, which may be impacted by sleep quality, policing-related stress, and social support. In a sample of Canadian police officers, sex was indirectly related to post traumatic stress, depression, generalized anxiety, panic, and social anxiety symptoms through its relationships with social support and sleep quality, but not through policing-related stress. Sex was indirectly related to problematic alcohol use symptoms through sleep quality only. Differences in clinical symptom severity between both sexes may be partially accounted for by the worsened sleep quality reported by women officers relative to their men counterparts. Conversely, general social support appears to be a protective, albeit insufficient, factor influencing the mental health of women police officers. Male and women police officers did not differ in their reports of policing-related stress. The current results underscore the importance of incorporating strategies to improve sleep practices into police workplace environments. Additionally, findings that general social support and policing-related stress do not help explain the trend of increased clinical severity reported by women police suggest that more research is still needed to identify and delineate other contributing factors.

摘要

警官，特别是女警官报告说，相对于普通人群，精神障碍的发病率较高，这可能受到睡眠质量、警务相关压力和社会支持的影响。在加拿大警察的样本中，性通过与社会支持和睡眠质量的关系间接与创伤后压力、抑郁、广泛性焦虑、恐慌和社交焦虑症状相关，但与警务相关的压力无关。性仅通过睡眠质量与有问题的酒精使用症状间接相关。两性之间临床症状严重程度的差异可能部分归因于女性官员相对于男性同行报告的睡眠质量恶化。相反，一般的社会支持似乎是一种保护性的，尽管不够，影响女警察心理健康的因素。男性和女性警察在报告警务相关压力方面没有差异。目前的结果强调了将改善睡眠习惯的策略纳入警察工作场所环境的重要性。此外，一般社会支持和警务相关压力无助于解释女性警察报告的临床严重程度增加的趋势的研究结果表明，仍需要更多的研究来识别和描述其他促成因素。