Die rol van geharde en verdedigingsmeganismes in uitbranding onder lede van die Suid-Afrikaanse Polisiediens

[摘要] English: Policing is universally seen as a stressful, demanding occupation with theoccurrence of potentially violent and life threatening situations. This situation canclearly be identified in the South African context, due to the violent culture andshortage of means within the police service. South African police officers areconstantly confronted with high levels of crime, transformation and a shortage ofmeans. A high occurrence of work stress, post traumatic stress syndrome, burnout,the misuse of alcohol, suicide, as well as low levels of work satisfaction and workperformance is common among police officers.International as well as South African research have shown that untreated stress insome individuals can lead to burnout, a condition that is seen as a health threat inmany service rendering and people orientated occupations. In spite of this fact somepolice officers succeed in maintaining their psychological wellbeing. The concepts ofhardiness and defence mechanisms are explored as protective factors againstburnout, under the meta-theoretical framework of positive psychology. The aim ofthis research is to determine the occurrence of burnout among police members inhigh risk units, as well as to determine the role of hardiness and defencemechanisms. The research group consisted of 365 members of the police service from high riskunits in the Free State Province, with an average age of 38.5 years. Specificsampling was used to include participants. Most of the participants were male(74.5%), married (64.9%) and on the level of inspector (49.9%). In addition to thebiographical questionnaire that gave information about race, gender, mother tongue,age, marital status and the unit in which members work, three additionalquestionnaires were used. Burnout was measured by means of the MaslachBurnout Inventory. Hardiness was measured with the Dispositional Resilience Scale�?Hardiness, and defence mechanisms with the Defence Style Inventory.Descriptive statistics and alpha coefficients were calculated for all scales andsubscales. Systematic regression analysing was performed to investigate theformulated research hypothesis.The results show that more than a third (37.3%) of participants experience highlevels of depersonalisation. It is also seen that captains and inspectors experiencehigher levels of burn out, whilst the diving unit experience high levels ofdepersonalisation. Higher levels of burn out were also found in divorced individualsand those that are separated by bed and table. It seems that the burn out componentof depersonalisation plays a large role in the general level of burn out in theparticipants. A specific correlation was found between emotional burn out and theuse of unhealthy defence mechanisms. The hardiness component of commitmentwas present in all the scales of burn out (emotional drainage, depersonalisation, aswell as personal achievement). There is also a correlation between control andpersonal achievement. In the light of some of the results the recommendation can bemade that a higher level of hardiness and the use of maladaptive defencemechanisms must be included in the selection of high risk unit members. Thesefounding's can be used for the development and implementation of prevention �?andintervention programs within the South African police service.

[发布机构] University of the Free State