Occupational stress and depression in members of a specialized police unit for riot and crowd control operations

Law enforcement may expose police officers (POs) to significant psychosocial risk factors, so that some subjects may find themselves in conditions of distress. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between job-related stress and the presence of symptoms of depression in a specialized police unit, the ‘VI Reparto Mobile’, exclusively deployed to control public order in high-risk situations, such as political or sports events, where public safety might be jeopardized. A homogeneous group of POs, all members of Italian ‘VI Reparto Mobile’, engaged exclusively in riot and crowd control operations, responded to our invitation to complete a questionnaire for the assessment of work-related stress and depression. Officers who had experienced a discrepancy between work effort and rewards showed a marked increase in the risk of self-reported depression (OR 7.00 95% CI 4.76 to 10.30) when compared with their counterparts who didn’t undergo job-related “distress “. The prevalence of depressive symptoms in the investigated subjects was low, but not negligible. Therefore a major attention should be paid to take necessary steps to prevent distress and improve the mental well-being of POs, especially those deployed in high-impact operations, in which their operational efficiency may seriously affect not only the officers’ but also the general population’s safety and survival.