SHAW68_proof ■ 11 November 2014 ■ 1/5 Safety and Health at Work xxx (2014) 1e5 55 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect 56 57 Safety and Health at Work 58 59 60 journal homepage: www.e-shaw.org 61 62 63 Original Article 64 65 1 Shift Work and Occupational Stress in Police Officers 66 2 67 3 1,* 1 1 1 1 68 Q10 Claudia C. Ma , Michael E. Andrew , Desta Fekedulegn ,JaK.Gu , Tara A. Hartley , 4 Luenda E. Charles 1,2, John M. Violanti 2, Cecil M. Burchfiel 1 69 5 Q1Q2 70 6 1 Biostatistics and Epidemiology Branch, Health Effects Laboratory Division, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Morgantown, WV, USA 71 2 7 Department of Epidemiology and Environmental Health, School of Public Health and Health Professions, University at Buffalo, State University of New York, 72 8 New York, NY, USA 73 9 74 10 75 article info abstract 11 76 12 77 Article history: Background: Shift work has been associated with occupational stress in health providers and in those 13 78 Received 26 March 2014 working in some industrial companies. The association is not well established in the law enforcement 14 79 Received in revised form workforce. Our objective was to examine the association between shift work and police work-related 15 3 October 2014 stress. 80 16 Accepted 6 October 2014 Methods: The number of stressful events that occurred in the previous month and year was obtained 81 17 using the Spielberger Police Stress Survey among 365 police officers aged 27e66 years. Work hours were 82 Keywords: 18 derived from daily payroll records. A dominant shift (day, afternoon, or night) was defined for each 83 19 occupational stress police officer participant as the shift with the largest percentage of total time a participant worked (starting time from 84 20 shift work 4:00 AM to1:59 AM, from 12 PM to 7:59 PM, and from 8:00 PM to 3:59 AM for day, afternoon, and night 85 21 shifts, respectively) in the previous month or year. Analysis of variance and covariance were used to 86 22 examine the number of total and subscale (administrative/professional pressure, physical/psychological 87 23 danger, or organizational support) stressful events across the shift. 88 24 Results: During the previous month and year, officers working the afternoon and night shifts reported fi 89 25 more stressful events than day shift of cers for total stress, administrative/professional pressure, and < 90 26 physical/psychological danger (p 0.05). These differences were independent of age, sex, race/ethnicity, and police rank. The frequency of these stressful events did not differ significantly between officers 91 27 working the afternoon and night shifts. 92 28 Conclusion: Noneday shift workers may be exposed to more stressful events in this cohort. Interventions 93 29 to reduce or manage police stress that are tailored by shift may be considered. 94 30 Ó 2014, Occupational Safety and Health Research Institute. Published by Elsevier. All rights reserved. 95 31 96 32 97 33 98 34 99 35 100 1. Introduction related to CVD through several pathways such as work-related 36 101 psychological and behavioral disorders [7]. 37 102 Shift work is common in many occupations, including those of A number of prospective studies have provided evidence that 38 103 police officers and other emergency responders. There is increasing work stress is a risk factor for CVD [9e12]. Peter et al [13] found that 39 104 evidence that shift work is associated with cardiovascular disor- work stress explained the effects of shift work on cardiovascular 40 105 ders, including myocardial infarction and ischemic stroke [1e4]. risk factors such as hypertension and atherogenic lipids. Later, 41 106 Numerous underlying mechanisms have been proposed to explain Puttonen et al [7] proposed occupational stress as one of the 42 107 causal relationships between shift work and cardiovascular disease pathways mediating the association between shift work and CVD. 43 108 (CVD) [4e8]. Shift work may be directly related to increased risk for Although previous studies have compared differences in work 44 109 CVD due to circadian disturbance or misalignment between work stress between shift and noneshift workers [14e17], work stress as 45 110 time and an individual’s internal circadian system [6], or indirectly well as shift structure may vary by occupation. Police officers, in 46 111 47 112 48 Q3 * Corresponding author. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, HELD/BEB, Mailstop L-4050, 1095 Willowdale Road, Morgantown, WV 26505-2888, USA. 113 49 E-mail address: [email protected] (C.C. Ma). 114 50 115 51 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0) 116 which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. 52 117 53 2093-7911/$ e see front matter Ó 2014, Occupational Safety and Health Research Institute. Published by Elsevier. All rights reserved. 118 54 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.shaw.2014.10.001 119 Please cite this article in press as: Ma CC, et al., Shift Work and Occupational Stress in Police Officers, Safety and Health at Work (2014), http:// dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.shaw.2014.10.001 SHAW68_proof ■ 11 November 2014 ■ 2/5 2 Saf Health Work 2014;-:1e5 1 particular, appear to be exposed to a higher level of stressors [18,19] nonepolice friends, inadequate support within the department, 66 2 and exhibited greater risk of CVD [20] and a more adverse CVD risk and political pressure within and outside the department. 67 3 factor profile [21]. 68 fi 4 Spielberger et al [22] classi ed police stressors into three cate- 2.3. Shift work information 69 5 gories: administrative and professional pressures, physical and 70 6 psychological dangers, and lack of support within and outside the Work information during the 1 year prior to the date of ex- 71 7 police organization. The frequency of these stressors may be amination was derived from a database of payroll records for 72 8 dependent on many factors including their work shift, police rank, each participant. Officers were assigned to one of three fixed 73 fl 9 and duty location, and may uctuate throughout the year. schedules implemented by the Police Department beginning in 74 10 Determining the frequency of each stressor encountered by shift 1994; however, officers may also work other shifts as necessary, 75 fi 11 working police of cers may be of vital importance for developing such as court appearance or being a substitute for a sick coworker 76 12 effectively tailored stress management programs. Current pro- during a scheduled day off. Day shift started between 4:00 AM 77 13 grams provide approaches to dealing with stress in general or are and 11:59 AM (62.1% of the day shift workers started work at 7:00 78 14 targeted for acute incidents, i.e., critical incident management AM, and 37.9% at 8:00 AM), the afternoon shift was between 79 15 program. This approach may reduce the effectiveness of stress in- 12:00 PM and 7:59 PM (all afternoon shift workers started work 80 fi 16 terventions for police of cers [23]. The objectives of the present at 4:00 PM), and the night shift was between 8:00 PM and 3:59 81 17 study were to investigate (1) whether the number of overall police AM (all night shift workers started work at 8:00 PM). The typical 82 18 work-related stressful events that occurred in the previous month work schedule included 4 days of work, 4 days off work, 4 days of 83 19 and year varied across shift type, and (2) whether a similar pattern work, and 3 days off work. The total number of work hours as 84 20 was apparent for subscales of police stress including administra- well as hours worked on each shift during the year prior to the 85 21 tive/professional pressure, physical/psychological danger, and lack date of examination were calculated for each participant, and 86 22 of organizational support. were standardized to a weekly basis. A dominant shift (day, af- 87 23 ternoon, or night) was assigned to each participant based on the 88 24 2. Materials and methods largest percent time a police officer worked on a specificshift 89 25 schedule during the previous year. Similarly, a dominant shift in 90 26 2.1. Source of data the previous month was also assigned to each participant ac- 91 92 27 cording to the participant’s largest percent time worked on a 28 Data were collected between 2004 and 2009 as part of the specific shift during the previous month. 93 29 Buffalo Cardio-Metabolic Occupational Police Stress study, a cross- 94 30 sectional study with a primary focus on assessing whether police 95 31 work-related stress was associated with subclinical CVD and 2.4. Demographic information 96 32 metabolic outcomes. All 710 active duty police officers from the 97 Information on sex, age, marital status, race/ethnicity, rank, and 33 Q5 Buffalo, New York Police Department (New York, NY, USA) were 98 34 invited to participate in the study. Pregnant officers (n ¼ 2) were workload were obtained from a self-report questionnaire. Work- 99 fi 35 excluded from examinations. Of the 464 officers examined, 99 were load was estimated by each of cer based on the perception of the 100 36 excluded due to missing values for either shift work or police stress, work activity levels in the district in which he/she served.