Workplace Violence Against Police Officers and the Effect of Workplace Violence on Mental Health

Abstract

Aim: The aim of the research is to reveal the prevalence of violence against police officers and to examine the effect of being subjected to violence on their mental health. Methods: The sample of the research consists of 339 police officers working in different duty areas. Questionnaire technique was used to collect data in the study. The questionnaire form consists of two parts. In the first part of the questionnaire, there are questions to determine the demographic characteristics of the participants (age, gender, marital status, education level, working year, etc.). In the second part of the questionnaire, there are questions to measure workplace violence and the Depression-Anxiety-Stress Scale. SPSS 23.0 package program was used in the analysis of the research data. Frequency distribution, descriptive statistics and t-test were used in the analysis of the data. Results: In the current study, it has been determined that 39.2% of police officers have been exposed to at least one type of workplace violence in the last 1 year. It was observed that the most common type of violence was verbal violence (28.9%). The results show that exposure to workplace violence negatively affects the stress and depression levels of police officers. Conclusion: Research results show that workplace violence is an important risk factor for police officers. Being exposed to violence also negatively affects the mental health of police officers. These results show the importance of implementing policies to prevent violence against police officers.