UC Irvine

Law enforcement officers are routinely exposed to stressful events and work strains that can have detrimental effects on their personal health and job performance. Three mixed-methods studies were conducted to further understanding of stress and wellness issues among police officers and to augment their training in police-community relations. Study 1 utilized a cross-sectional survey to assess the prevalence and correlates of wellness issues among a large police department’s uniformed officers and civilian employees. Focal attention was given to perceived organizational support and perceived community support as moderators of the relationship between work stress and wellbeing. Studies 2 and 3 involved the design, implementation, and evaluation of an innovative 40-hour procedural justice and officer wellness training program. Using a waitlist-control comparison group, 42 patrol officers were randomly assigned to either the training or a waitlist condition. The training program was developed by a team of police officers and university researchers, under the auspices of the police department’s Chief of Police and command staff. Study 2 assessed the acceptability and uptake of the training by attending officers, with in-person assessments throughout training. Study 3 involved repeated measures questionnaires to evaluate the immediate (post-training) and follow-up (4-month) efficacy of the training program, assessing multiple wellness and procedural justice criteria. Results from Study 1 highlight the importance of organizational support as a moderator of the work stress-wellness relation. While the training was deemed valuable by its participants in Study 2, evidence regarding its effectiveness in improving wellness is severely limited due to low participation in the Study 3 assessments. Information gleaned from the project can serve to inform conceptualizations of officer wellness, future officer wellness interventions, and future training evaluation research in the context of policing.