Date of Award

Summer 8-17-2024

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

PhD Counseling Psychology

Department

Professional Psychology and Family Therapy

Advisor

Pamela F. Foley, PhD

Committee Member

Jessica Jean Baptiste, PhD

Committee Member

Thomas Massarelli, PhD

Committee Member

Thomas Shea, DSc

Keywords

law enforcement officer stress, role overload, job stress

Abstract

The current study sought to replicate a prior study (Duxbury & Halinski, 2018), conducted with Canadian police officers, to further explore the generalizability of their theoretical model of work- and family-role overload as sources of stress for male and female police officers in the United States. The Canadian study supported the proposed relationships between work-role overload, including four antecedents (Competing Demands, Outside Work of One’s Mandate, Non-supportive Culture, Employed Hours Worked), family-role overload (Dependent Care Hours), and police officer stress. A total of 357 United States law enforcement officers participated in the present study. A multivariate analysis was conducted utilizing SmartPLS 4 (Ringle et al., 2024) for PLS-SEM algorithm and bootstrapping procedures to analyze the measurement and structural model. Results demonstrated a significant positive relationship between role overload (work and family) and perceived stress. Three of the four proposed antecedents also had significant positive relationships with work-role overload (Competing Demands, Non-supportive Culture, and Employed Hours Worked). Contrary to the proposed structural model, the relationship between hours spent in dependent care and family-role overload and the relationship between feeling pressured to perform outside of one’s mandate and work-role overload were not significant. These results may assist law enforcement recruiters, law enforcement organizations, police policy makers, interdisciplinary researchers, and counseling and police psychologists in better understanding the antecedents of role overload and their connection to officer stress and mental health. Future research may consider further exploring the importance of gender, context, and culture as variables potentially impacting law enforcement stress.

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