STRESS AND ITS EFFECT ON PSYCHOLOGICALHEALTH: MODERATING ROLE OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

Abstract

The increase in the suicide rate and cases of homicide, divorce and depression has raised the question about the reasons behind such behavior amongst the police officials, which the present study has tried to address. The 21st century witnessed a drastic change in terms of work environment, where both the partners in the family are working and are devoid of the quality leisure time causing work-family imbalance which ultimately causes work-family conflict. Further, the excessive demands of workplace are becoming pressuring and multi-tasking has taken a form of work overload at the workplace, especially in policing context where due to low manpower, burden has clustered on just few employees. Moreover, the hierarchical structure of Indian Police department prevents open communication between the senior and subordinate, leading to the low organizational support whenever the officers require it. Besides the stress caused by the nature of job of police officials which involves criminal encounters and violence, the above mentioned factors were identified as the main stressors for police officials which develops stress amongst them and are hypothesized to possess a significant relationship with psychological health mediated by stress. Considering stress as a negative emotion and human beings driven by their emotions, the study also tries to assess the role of emotional intelligence in moderating the relationship of stress and psychological health. To test these effects, the present study is designed based on the descriptive research design, following the quantitative approach using survey for data collection. The study sample involved police officials working at the ranks of constables, head constables and sub-inspectors in the Uttarakhand region. Using convenience sampling technique, questionnaires were distributed and finally 598 questionnaires were used for data analysis. Analysis of the data was accomplished through regression analysis using Hayes‟ SPSS macro named „PROCESS‟. The results of the quantitative analysis showed support for a relationship between work-family conflict, work-overload, perceived organization support and psychological health. Stress mediated the relationship between the independent variables and dependent variables and emotional intelligence acted as a catalyst between stress and psychological health such that low emotional intelligence strengthens the negative impact of stress on psychological health. ii The mean values showed that work-family conflict, work overload and stress were high whereas, perceived organization support; emotional intelligence and psychological health were on a lower side indicating high stress low support environment and exhaustion of emotional resources. Reasons being, less manpower, week-offs, power gap and lack of welfare activities for police human resources. Recommendations such as job rotation, leaves and open communication and counseling cells for police officials to improve the situation are given. Lastly, limitations and future scope of the study are mentioned such as, the study is cross-sectional in nature which limits the generalizibility of the study and open new vistas of research