M. A. Thesis


Effects of Job Stress on the Depression of Police Officers: Mediating Effects of Self-Esteem and Social Support


So-Yeon Lee

Department of Counseling Psychology
Graduate School of Education
Yeungnam University
(Advised by Professor Yoon-Joo Lee, Ph. D.)

Abstract

In relation to the job stress of police officers that has been continuously discussed as their job exposed to too much stress could cause serious emotional problems compared to other jobs, this study aimed to understand the effects of job stress on the depression of police officers, and also to understand the mediating effects of self-esteem and social support on the relation between them. Targeting total 358 local police officers, the self-report questionnaires were distributed. Through the statistical process by using the structural equation model, this study examined and verified the mediating effects of self-esteem and social support on the psychological path from job stress to depression of police officers.
The results of this study based on the purpose and research questions are as follows.
First, regarding the job stress and depression in accordance with the background variables of police officers, overall, the police officers with higher age, academic background, class, and service period, experienced more job stress and depression. Second, in the results of verifying the mediating effects of self-esteem on the relation between job stress and depression of police officers, the partial mediating effects of self-esteem were verified, so that the police officers with high self-esteem would show the low tendency of depression even when experiencing job stress. Third, in the results of verifying the mediating effects of social support on the relation between job stress and depression of police officers, the partial mediating effects of social support were verified. Thus, if they get social support from surrounding environment, the tendency of depression could be decreased even when getting job stress.
Therefore, this study verified the significance of mediating effects of two variables such as self-esteem and social support, and also verified the correlations between those variables. As the self-esteem and social support played an important role in the occurrence of depression, they would be also effective on the therapeutic intervention strategies. Especially, the results of this study verified again that more practical and preventive efforts would be more important and essential to continuously maintain the mental health of police officers directly connected to the national safety, by expanding the educational service like intensive healing program and psychological diagnosis/counseling opportunity for the highly-experienced police officers who experience more job stress, and also providing the social support program and education for stress coping/relief to the overall police organization including the highly-experienced police officers. Also, the follow-up researches complementing the limitations of this study should complement the scales considering the work and psychological characteristics of police officers, and also conduct diverse qualitative researches such as observational research.

Key words : job stress of police, depression, self-esteem, social support