Occupational Stress and its Associated Factors among Traffic Police in Sunsari, Nepal

Abstract

Background: Occupational stress is a term used to define ongoing stress that is related to workplace. All occupation involves a certain degree of stress which in fact is a normal aspect. However there are certain occupations which prove to be more stressful. One occupation which qualifies for these determinants and essentially is stressful in nature is that of police personnel. The study aimed to assess occupational stress and its associated factors among traffic police in Sunsari, Nepal.

Methods: A cross- sectional study was conducted in Dharan, Itahari and Inaruwa of Sunsari and samples were selected using the non- probability total enurative sampling technique.  A total of 77 samples were screened by using modified likert scale. A score up to 50 is considered as mild stress, score 51- 79 is considered as moderate stress and score 80 and above is considered as severe stress. List of possible influencing factors were used to determine associated factors. Mean, median, standard deviation, percent, and frequency were used to describe demographic data. Independent sample T-test and one way ANOVA were adopted to find out the association between dependent and independent variables.

Results: The majority of the subjects were male (87%), married (84.4%), and between the age group of (30- 40) years.  Regarding designation non- gazzeted 4^th class was highest among all level (50.6%). Majority (81.9%) of traffic polices working in Sunsari, Nepal have moderate level of occupational stress. One-way ANOVA depicts a significant association of occupational stress with age and education of respondents with the p-value (0.008) and (0.044) respectively.

Conclusion: This study concludes that traffic police working in Sunsari, Nepal have moderate level of occupational stress. Major associated factors are shift work, job pressure, delayed promotions, inadequate salary, frequent transfers and disruption of family time.