Effects of Stress on Job Performance among Police Officers: A Case of Migori County, Kenya

Abstract

Police officers experience stress characterized by long working hours, terrible accidents scenes, lack of privacy due to inadequate housing, poor communication procedures, inappropriate staff development procedures which results into devastating effects such as anxiety, depression and anger if not properly checked and handled. The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of stress on job performance of police officers in Migori County, Kenya. The specific objectives of the study were to determine; the effects of depression among police officers, effects of anxiety among police officers and effects of anger among police officers in Migori County Kenya. The study adopted both descriptive and correlation survey designs.  The population of the study  comprised eight Officers Commanding Police Division (OCPD) and District Administration Police Commander (DAPC), seven Officers Commanding Stations (OCS) and Divisional Administration Police Commander (Div. APC) and Junior Police Officers which totaled to 1030. Random sampling was used to select seven OCPDs, seven DAPC, six OCSs and six Div. APCs. Simple random sampling was used to select 309 Junior Police Officers. The instruments of data collection were questionnaires and interview schedule. Piloting was done in one police station in one police division to ascertain the instrument's reliability. Face validity of the instruments was ascertained by the supervisors from the college of human resource development of Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology. Data was analyzed using SPSS software which determined the effects of stress (depression, anxiety and anger) among police officers in Migori County. The findings were presented using pie charts, bar charts and frequency tables to show percentages of different variables. The findings of the research confirmed that effects of depression, anxiety, and anger existed among the police officers in the Migori County with effects of anger being the highest at 56.1%, depression 47.3% and anxiety at 41.7%. The study recommends the need for introduction of pre-traumatic scenes briefing, post traumatic stress counseling and debriefing, introduction of anger management skills, encouraging of senior officers to include junior officers in decision making and, advising on better stress copying styles by the officers. The findings of the study could be useful to stakeholders in improving measures to reduce stress among the police officers in order to improve police job performance in Migori County, by and large in the entire police services.