“Tillsammans så är vi starkare”: En studie om stress & stressreducering vid hot och våld : En kvalitativ studie på stress och stressreducering vid hot och våld mot poliser

Sammanfattning: Threats and violence at work are an increasingly widespread work environmentproblem in Sweden. This affects many professions but especially police officersand other emergency professions. This problem risks causing stress that negativelyaffects the police officers' health. The aim of the present study is to increaseunderstanding of police officers' experiences of stress and what measures arestress- reducing in a professional group exposed to recurring threats and violenceat work. A qualitative study was conducted of eight semi-structured interviewswith police officers in Stockholm. The analysis was performed with an interpretivephenomenological analysis (IPA) originating in health psychology. The IPAmethod has a structured way of thematizing responses out of many humanexperiences. The analysis confirms that all respondents were exposed to threatsand violence at work. They experience useful positive stress, as well as acuterecurring and chronic stress at work but they also express a lack of time andprioritization of mental training and reflection for stress management. The policedealt with stress primarily through conversational support with their colleagues,visualization and target image training and taking time for workout and recovery athome and to some extent their own reflection. From the organization, they mostlyreceived support with crisis management teams after emergency events.