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Anxiety and styles of coping with occupational stress resulting from work with ‘dangerous’ prisoners in prison service officers

  • Konstantinos Tsirigotis (a1), Wojciech Gruszczyński (a2) and Sebastian Pęczkowski (a3)
Abstract
Objective

Prisoners categorised as ‘dangerous’ are a category of prisoners that require and/or force into using special measures of caution, protection and security. The aim of the study was to examine the intensity of anxiety (as a state and as a trait) experienced by officers working with ‘dangerous’ prisoners and styles of coping with stress they adopt.

 Methods

A total of 40 officers working with ‘dangerous’ prisoners (the study group, SG) and 60 officers of the security department not working with ‘dangerous’ prisoners (the reference group, RG) were studied. The intensity of anxiety was assessed applying the Polish version of ‘State-Trait Anxiety Inventory’ (STAI); styles of coping with stress were explored employing the Polish version of ‘Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations’ (CISS) and the author’s own questionnaire. Data were analysed using the mean, standard deviation, difference testing (the Mann–Whitney U test), correlation–regression procedure (Kendall’s tau, τ correlation coefficient and forward stepwise multiple regression).

 Results

Officers in the SG faced verbal and physical aggression; nevertheless, scores of officers in both the groups were within the interval of mean scores for all the studied STAI and CISS variables. Officers in the SG achieved significantly higher scores on the state-anxiety scale and the Emotion-Oriented Style (EOS), and lower scores on the Task-Oriented Style (TOS) and Social Diversion (SD). The correlation-regression procedure indicated that there were relationships between anxiety and styles of coping with stress but they differed slightly between the groups.

 Conclusions

Officers in the SG feel state anxiety stronger and display a stronger preference for the EOS than officers in the RG. Officers in the RG more strongly prefer the TOS and SD. State anxiety is a variable negatively explaining the TOS in the SG, whereas anxiety as a trait is a variable explaining the EOS in both the groups. The coping styles of warders dealing with dangerous prisoners are different and may need specific psychological counselling and training programmes.
Copyright
© Scandinavian College of Neuropsychopharmacology 2015 
Corresponding author
Dr. Konstantinos Tsirigotis, Department of Psychology, Jan Kochanowski University, Piotrków Trybunalski Branch, Słowackiego 114/118 street, 97-300 Piotrków Trybunalski, Poland. Tel: (+48 44) 732 74 00 ext. 149; E-mail: psyche1@onet.eu; konstantinos.tsirigotis@ujk.edu.pl; k.tsirigotis@unit.pl
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Acta Neuropsychiatrica
  • ISSN: 0924-2708
  • EISSN: 1601-5215
  • URL: /core/journals/acta-neuropsychiatrica
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