Hardiness and psychological distress in a cohort of police officers.

Sep 16, 2008International journal of emergency mental health

How mental toughness relates to stress in police officers

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Abstract

In a study of 105 police officers, hardiness control was significantly associated with lower depression symptoms for both genders.

The hardiness control dimension was negatively associated with depression symptoms measured by the CES-D scale.
For women, hardiness commitment was significantly associated with lower scores on both depression and PTSD symptom scales.
Men exhibited negative associations between hardiness commitment and depression and PTSD symptoms, but these were not statistically significant.
Hardiness commitment was negatively associated with overall psychological distress scores, with a significant effect observed in men.
Gender differences indicate that hardiness commitment may offer more protective benefits against depression and PTSD symptoms for female officers.

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Since police officers are frequently exposed to high stress situations, individual differences in the response to stress and trauma are of interest. We examined the association of hardiness components (commitment, control and challenge) with depression, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, and symptoms of general psychological distress in police officers. The random sample included 105 officers (40 women and 65 men) from the Buffalo Cardio-Metabolic Police Stress (BCOPS) study baseline visit. Components of hardiness were measured using a 15-item hardiness scale. Depressive symptoms were measured using the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression scale (CES-D), PTSD symptoms were measured using the impact of events scale (IES), and symptoms of general psychological distress were measured using the Brief Symptoms Inventory (BSI). Associations were assessed using linear regression analysis. Models were adjusted for age, education and marital status. Because of significant gender interactions, analyses were stratified by gender. The hardiness control dimension was significantly and negatively associated with CES-D for both genders but was not associated with IES. Hardiness commitment was significantly and negatively associated with both CES-D and IES in women. Men had negative but non-significant associations for commitment with CES-D and IES. Hardiness commitment was negatively associated with the overall BSI score for both men and women but the association was only significant for men, though the strength of the association was stronger for women. This is likely a result of the impact of the smaller sample size for women. The magnitude of gender differences in these associations shows that for depressive and PTSD symptoms, the commitment dimension of hardiness may be more protective in female police officers than in male officers.

Hardiness and psychological distress in a cohort of police officers.

Abstract

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