On-Duty Nonfatal Injury that Lead to Work Absences Among Police Officers and Level of Perceived Stress
Christine West1, Desta Fekedulegn, Michael Andrew
1National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Cincinnati, Ohio (Drs West, Fekedulegn, Andrew, Burchfiel); Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan (Drs Harlow, Park); Department of Health Behavior Health Education, School of Public Health, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan (Dr Bingham); School of Nursing, University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Michigan (Dr McCullagh); and Department of Epidemiology and Environmental Health, School of Public Health and Health Professions, University of Buffalo, State University of New York, Buffalo, New York (Dr Violanti).
Objective:
We examined prevalence, frequency, duration, and recency of injury leave and the association of duty-related injury with perceived stress in U.S. police officers.
Methods:
This cross-sectional study contained 422 active duty police officers from a mid-sized urban police department. For each participating officer, work history records were used to assess on-duty injuries that lead to work absences. Linear regression analyses were used for analyses.
Results:
Most participants had experienced at least one injury (62%), and among those injured, 67% experienced more than one duty-related injury. The average number of injuries per officer was three (range 1 to 12). There was a significant linear trend in mean perceived stress across injury count even after adjusting for age, rank, and sex (P = 0.025).
Conclusion:
Findings suggest that work-related injury is common and repeated work-related injuries are psychologically distressing in U.S. police officers.
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