Workplace Harassment, Work Overload, and Psychological Distress in Female Police Officers

Received 19 Apr, 2019

Accepted 05 Mar, 2020

Published 31 Mar, 2020

Current correlational study was carried out to assess the relationship among workplace harassment, work overload, and psychological distress in female police officers. It was hypothesized that there would be a positive relationship between workplace harassment, work overload, and psychological distress. The sample comprised of 100 female police officers with age range from 21- 40 years selected from different police stations and training centers of Lahore by using purposive sampling technique. Self-translated Urdu version of Negative Acts Questionnaire (Einarsen, Hoel, & Notelaers, 2009), Reilly’s Role Overload Scale (Reilly, 1982), and Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (Kessler et al., 2009) were used to assess study variables. Correlational analysis revealed that workplace harassment was positively correlated with work overload and psychological distress. Moreover, regression analysis revealed that workplace harassment was a positive predictor for psychological distress. The study has implications in police force to develop harassment control strategies and effective work hours to reduce psychological distress and promote healthy work environment for female employees.

Harassment exposure is not alien to women work force, which entails restricted work freedom, increased emotional turmoil, and lasting psychological distress. Subjective well-being of working women deteriorates when working hours increase in abundance due to uncertain duty calls accompanied by experiences of harassment from male counterparts (Rathore, Hassan, Nasreen, & Ali, 2019). Women in Pakistan are engaged in different professions, which are not unique for workplace harassment exposure, especially, those in public domain, for example, police and security services (McCarty, Stoep, & McCauley, 2007). In Pakistan, women make only 0.94 percent of the total police force (Abbas, Hameed, & Waheed, 2010), yet anticipated harassment being male dominant profession may be a primal factor that impede women’s way to join this profession. Inappropriate comments, ostracizing behaviors, critical remarks, intimidating tactics, demands, direct threats, and even physical damage to self or property are various manifestations of harassment experiences in the workplace (Becker, Catanio, & Bailey, 2014). Since the very beginning, male officers and administrators were skeptical and critical regarding introduction of female officers in the police department due to their perceived emotional and physical weakness, which makes them more prone to being harassed or attacked (Bernat & Zupan, 1989).

Women who reserve the needs for self-sufficiency are devoured with weights and burdens of these experiences leading to persistent distress (Oliphant, 2019; Thakur & Paul, 2017). Moreover, work overload with unpredictable working hours, change of shifts, and uncertain job calls act as a predicament for psychological distress (Moore, 2017). Psychological distress has been highlighted as absence of eagerness, issues with rest, feeling worried for future, sometimes being exhausted (crying or feeling like crying) or losing enthusiasm for things, and considering attempting suicide (Weaver, 2004). A growing body of research indicates that harassment and work overload predict psychological distress in employees (Simpson & Cohen, 2004).

Researches also indicate that workplace harassment was correlated to pressure, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress issues irrespective of sex, race, education level, or earlier history of being tortured (Berry, Gillespie, Fisher, Gormley, & Haynes, 2016). Employees who faced greater harassment had greater psychological distress (Giorgi et al., 2016). It was also found that psychological distress is high where the workplace violence is high. Workplace harassment also increased distress and work overload in employees (Salas et al., 2015). A longitudinal research found that employee harassment was a positive predictor of subsequent psychological health issues, involving psychological distress (Verkuil, Atasayi, & Molendijk, 2015). Significant positive correlation of sexual harassment with anxiety, depression, and psychological distress in nurses was also indicated by indigenous literature (Mushtaq, Sultana, & Imtiaz, 2015). Koval (2014) also investigated a significant relationship of psychological distress and harassment in female university teachers.

Women police force not only work with men, but also deals with opposite gender in different settings, for example, registering cases, filing reports, investigation purposes, apprehending, etc. Higher the rank more is public dealing and assigned tasks. Station House Officers (SHO) lead an entire police station; apart from including criminal apprehending cases, administrative responsibilities demand utmost attention, creating a risk of psychological turmoil (Major, Klein, & Ehrhart, 2002). So, it’s important to study role of these designations in variables of interest.

Anyone making false accusations against any woman is to be punished with five years in prison and with a fine under section 496C of the Pakistan Penal Code (1980). Despite of this law, such accusations and workplace harassment continue at various workplaces in Pakistan. Work stressors like harassment, role overload, family conflicts, and role ambiguity are predictors of burnout and distress in staff (Lambert et al., 2009; Savicki, Cooley, & Gjesvold 2003). Lack of management support as well as social support towards coworkers increases the chances of burnout among the workers (Cieslak et al., 2014; Lambert, 2010;Roy, Novak, & Miksaj-Todorovic, 2010; Thompson, Kirk, & Brown, 2006). With regard to work overload, a moderately positive relationship was also found amongst work exhaustion and psychological distress. Work over-burden was an indicator of physical weakness which leads to mental distress (Bazazan et al., 2014). Work overload and psychological distress had also positively correlated with each other (Prasanty, Husada, Effendy, & Simbolon, 2018).

Boyle (2016) reported that employees who experienced sexual harassment at workplace reported greater degree of job stress and consequently, did not perform well in their given task. Another study showed that nurses faced psychological distress because of low pay, heavy workload, and harassment by surgeons, as it was reported by 75% of operation theatre nurses. They reported that they faced work overload because of surgeon’s personal grudges and it also causes them physical and mental illnesses (Munthali, Bowa, & Odimba, 2008). Over-burden has a significant positive effect on psychological stress as well as stress in general (Parveen, 2009). Harassment is a routine at workplace in Pakistan and adversely affected many working women leading to a decreased work efficacy (Yasmin & Jabeen, 2017). Pearlin's theory of psychological distress recommends that people are in a specific condition of perpetual change because of the circumstances and stressors intermingle with these factors that cause work overload and disturbed mental health among employees (Schieman, Pudrovska, Pearlin, & Ellison, 2006).

Gilboa, Shirom, Freid, and Cooper (2008) cross-sectionally studied link between ranks, work overload, mental stress, and physical stress among 506 Brazilian military administration work staff. The findings showed that psychological distress had a nonsignificant correlation with working ranks. It was also suggested that excess of work and ranks of officers were not related with work related physical stress. Research showed that women with more age had more psychological distress (Jorm et al., 2005). Moreover, joint family system and family income are also among major determinants of psychological distress in working women (Cortés & Justicia, 2008; Mizan, 2018). Lee, Suh, Kim, and Park (2017) found that long working hours had adverse effects on psychological distress in women. Married women faced greater psychological distress as compared to single ones (Chang, Hancock, Johnson, Daly, & Jackson, 2005). One of the studies revealed that most problematic stressors among female employees included high work overload, less manning, overtime, and duty shift. All these factors caused psychological distress in female employees (Prince et al., 2015). Type of work (field or office) also caused psychological distress (Hall, Dollard, Tuckey, Winefield, & Thompson, 2010).

Different researches examined the relationship of different work environment factors and burnout of workers because psychological distress supports the idea that factors at work place are stronger predictors of police job and their burnout than the personal characteristics of the employees (Gerstein, Topp, & Correll, 1987; Griffin, Hogan, Lambert, Tucker-Gail, & Baker, 2010; Lambert 2010). Factors including hostile work environments questioning personal safety and security serve as a predicament of experiencing emotional turmoil (Ridner, 2004) that is why female police officers face more psychological distress in field and offices. Female officers are easy and frequent targets of gender-based stereotyping and harassment within the premises of their workplace environment (Martin & Jurik, 2006; Pogrebin & Poole 1998; Savicki et al. 2003). Studies indicated that female officers are more likely to experience occupational stress than male officers (Gross, Larson, Urban, & Zupan, 1994; Lambert, Engh, Hasbun, & Holzer, 2012; Lovrich & Stohr, 1993; Van Voorhis, Cullen, Link, & Wolfe, 1991; Wright & Saylor, 1991) and the work environment itself is hostile place to report (Pogrebin & Poole, 1998; Wright & Saylor, 1991; Gross, Larson, Urban, & Zupan, 1994). Accompanied work demands, task completions, excessive work hours, and over burden are determinants of psychological distress. Beside this, induction of female workers in police force is viewed with hostility and they were often viewed as an out-group (Martin & Jurik, 2006), may be in Pakistani culture too.

In the light of the existing literature that has been reviewed above, it can be assumed that workplace harassment and work overload are two extremely imperative contributing factors in arousing psychological distress in women, especially, among female police officers due to the intricate nature of their job. It is the need of the hour to take these factors into account in order to work for the emancipation of women in our society, while exclusively focusing on female police officers as they are often considered an epitome of women empowerment. Hence, the present study aims to investigate the relationship between workplace harassment, work overload, and psychological distress in female police officers. Based on the review of literature, objectives of the following study are to:

1.	Study relationship between workplace harassment, work overload, and psychological distress among female police officers
2.	Investigate work overload as the moderator between workplace harassment and psychological distress in female police officers

Hypotheses
Following are the hypotheses of the study drawn from previous literature:

1.	There is positive relationship between workplace harassment, work overload, and psychological distress among female police officers
2.	Workplace harassment and work overload are positive predictors of psychological distress among female police officers
3.	Work overload moderates the relationship of workplace harassment and psychological distress among female police officers

METHOD

Sample
The sample comprised of 100 female police officers with the age between 21 to 40 years (M = 25.58, SD = 4.04). Purposive Sampling technique was used to gather sample data because research was focused on particular designations and experiences of female police officers. Fifty two SHOs, 13 inspectors, and 35 sub-inspectors with work experience of at least 1 year were included in the study. However, constables were not excluded from the study. Sample data was gathered from different police stations along training centers of Lahore. For demographic details of the sample see Table 1.

Table 1:	Demographic Characteristics of Sample (N = 100)

Table 1 shows most of the participants are single, belonging to nuclear family system, and have field related nature of job.

Instruments
The instruments which were used in the present study are:

Negative Act Questionnaire-Revised (NAQ-R). It was used to measure workplace harassment. It was developed by Einarsen et al. (2009) consisting of 22 items which measure various negative acts on workplace. A five-point Likert scale from never to daily was used in that scale. Total scores were computed by adding the responses on all items. The questionnaire was translated in Urdu for research. The reliability coefficient of Urdu translated questionnaire was .77 for this study. Example of an item of NAQ-R is “someone withholding information that affects your performance and key areas of responsibility removed”.

Reilly’s Role Overload Scale. It was used to measure work overload (Reilly, 1982)) consisting of 6 items. A seven-point Likert scale from (never to always) was used. Total scores were computed by adding the responses on all items. This scale was translated into Urdu. The reliability of translated version is .76 for this study. Example of an item is “I have to do things which I don’t really have the time and energy for”.

Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10). This scale is widely recommended as the measure of psychological distress. The scale consisted of 10 statements about negative emotions and every item is rated on a five-point scale. The scale can be used as a brief instrument to identify people’s level of distress. According to the Kessler et al. (2009), the scores range from 10 to 50. The scale was translated in Urdu and reliability of translated version is .80 for present study. Total scores were computed by adding the responses on all items. Item example is “During the last 30 days, about how often did you feel nervous”.

All the tools were administered in translated version. Translation was done by MPhil and PhD scholars and after translation to establish the reliability of tools pilot study was conducted with some police officers.

PROCEDURE

First of all, permission was taken from the authors of the measures to use their tools in the current study. Official permission was taken from the concerned authority through a permission letter provided by the department explaining the nature and purpose of the research. After that researcher met with the officers and asked for their consent to take part in this research. The measures were administered in face-to-face interaction. Written informed consent was taken from all the respondents and they were clarified regarding their right to withdraw the research if they felt uncomfortable or due to any personal reason. Instructions were given about how to fill the questionnaires. On returning questionnaires, researcher thanked participants for their cooperation. A total of 130 questionnaires were given to the participants. Response rate was 70% from female police officers. Some of the challenges included unavailability of the police officers, hesitation, and negative anticipations of an official inquiry in disguise of research, preoccupation of job being at risk or evident firing upon sharing harassment related information. Upon repeated assurances and clarifications put forth by researchers regarding confidentiality/anonymity in initial meetings and imparting awareness of other ethical considerations paved way for officers to fill the questionnaires.

RESULTS

The data were analyzed in three key steps. First of all, reliability analysis was conducted for all the scales and Cronbach’s alpha for the scales was measured. Descriptive statistics were reported along demographic variables, workplace harassment, work overload, and psychological distress. Pearson Product Moment Correlation was applied to assess relationship between all demographic and the study variables. Moderation through regression analysis was run for examining the moderating role of work overload between workplace harassment and work overload. ANOVA was performed as additional analysis to examine the differences along three designations (SHOs, sub-inspectors, & inspectors) in psychological distress.

Table 2 depicts that marital status has a significant positive relationship with psychological distress and workplace harassment which reveals that married female officers face more workplace harassment and psychological distress. And overall job experience of participants has a significant positive correlation with psychological distress. Moreover, current job experience has a negative correlation with workplace harassment and work overload. Moreover, overtime has a positive relationship with psychological distress. Type of work (office job or field work) has a negative correlation with workplace harassment which reveals that participants being in field work experience more workplace harassment. Moreover, workplace harassment has a negative relationship with work overload and a positive relationship with psychological distress. While, work overload had a positive relationship with psychological distress. Hence, this Hypothesis 1 is confirmed for workplace harassment and psychological distress but rejected for workplace harassment and work overload.

Table 2:	Inter Correlation Among Demographics Variables and Study Variables (N = 100)
Note. For Family system: 1 = nuclear, 2 = joint; Marital status: 1 = single, 2 = married; Duty shift: 1= day, 2 = night; Overtime: 1 = yes, 2 = no; Type of work: 1 = field, 2 = office

Before conducting analysis of moderation linearity assumptions was tested. Scatter plot for the independent variables (workplace harassment & work overload) and dependent variable (psychological distress) indicated that assumption is satisfied. To check the assumption of normality unstandardized errors were examined. Review of the S-W test for normality for workplace harassment was assessed (SW = .97, df = 100, p = .04 ) along skewness (-.30) and kurtosis (-.61); for work overload (SW = .91, df = 100, p = .00 ) along skewness (.04) and kurtosis (-.1.44); and for psychological distress (SW = .91, df = 100, p = .00 ) along skewness (-1.16) and kurtosis (1.79) suggesting the normality of data (Lomax & Hahs-Vaughn, 2013.

To test the assumption of independence of errors, The Durbin-Watson statistic was computed and the value of 1.71 supported the assumption. For testing the assumption of multicollinearity, tolerance values were assessed which should be < 10 and > 0.1; for the present study, the values were in the specified range for all variables and no multicollinearity was observed in the data (Lomax & Hahs-Vaughn, 2013).

It was hypothesized that work overload would moderate the relationship between workplace harassment and psychological distress among female police officers. For this purpose, moderation through multiple regression analysis was performed.

Table 3:	Moderation of Work Overload Between Workplace Harassment and Psychological Distress (N = 100)
*p ˂ .05

Moderation through regression analysis was run to identify predictors of psychological distress from workplace harassment and work overload. The overall model explains 6.4% variance in psychological distress,F(3, 96) = 2.17,p = .09.

When work overload (centered) is added in Block 1 as a moderator, it explains 1.9 % variance,F_change(1, 98) = 1.94,p =.16 in psychological distress. Work overload is a nonsignificant predictor of psychological distress. In Block 2, when workplace harassment (centered) is added, Model 2 explains variance 3.8 % withF_change(1, 97) = 2.98,p = .05. Workplace harassment is a significant positive predictor of psychological distress in female police officers. Hence, hypothesis is confirmed in this case only. After interaction term is included in Block 3, the Model 3 further explained 0.7 % variance in psychological distress,F_change(1, 96) = .45,p = .09. The interaction term workplace harassment and work overload does not significantly predict psychological distress. Thus, the results indicate that work overload does not strengthen the positive relationship between workplace harassment and psychological distress as stated in hypothesis.

Overall, it is indicated that only workplace harassment is the positive predictor of psychological distress in female police officers. Female police officers facing workplace harassment have high level of psychological distress.

One-way ANOVA is applied to assess the differences among SHOs, sub-inspectors, and inspectors in workplace harassment, work overload, and psychological distress. Significant difference is found for work overload only, hence, least significant difference (LSD) post hoc analysis was run because the group sizes are different from each other and equal variances were assumed.

Table 4:	One-way ANOVA Comparing Workplace Harassment, Work Overload, and Psychological Distress Along Designation
Note. WH = Workplace Harassment; WO = Work Overload; PD = Psychological Distress *p ˂ .05

Results show nonsignificant difference in workplace harassment and psychological distress among all designations but there is a significant difference in work overload among SHOs, sub inspectors, and inspectors. By comparing mean differences, it was revealed that SHOs experience the highest work overload compared to inspectors who have lowest level of workload.

DISCUSSION

Workplace harassment and abuse may act as work related stressors that cause sentiments of self-blame and personal inadequacy (Charney, & Russell, 1994; Livingston, 1982; Richman, Shinsako, Rospenda, Flaherty, & Freels, 2002) as compared to unpleasant yet increasingly expected negative qualities of workplaces that is work over-burden (Rospenda, Fujishiro, Shannon, & Richman., 2008). Perlin's theory of psychological distress explained that individuals constantly change because of circumstances and the burdens that join them to enable them to resolve that issues (Robinson, O’Reilly, & Wang, 2013). Therefore, the current study explained the relationship of workplace harassment, work overload, and psychological distress among female police officers.

Result of present research revealed that workplace harassment had a negative correlation with work overload. The results are consistent with the study of Stouten et al. (2010) according to which ethical leadership and bullying were negatively associated with work overload. On the other hand, workplace harassment had a positive relationship with psychological distress and these results are supported by the work of Ansoleaga, Ahumada, and Cruz (2019) according to which workers who exposed to workplace violence and bullying had a greater likelihood of psychological distress. Low satisfaction with authority, work control, social environment, and especially, the experience of job struggle are every factors that associate the most unequivocally with harassing.

The outcome additionally showed that distinctive work conditions such as field work are identified as tormenting in various workplace settings, as women are not much inclined for working under certain settings, leading to greater distress in them. The results are also supported by Mark and Smith (2012) which showed that excessive workload can also increase the risk of other workplace problems, such as increased absences, workplace harassment, higher employee turnover, discrimination, employee burnout, and disillusionment.

This may inevitably develop in more violence, bullying, or sexual harassment. Results also revealed a positive relationship between workplace harassment and psychological distress in the present study. That means with the increase in workplace harassment, psychological distress increased in female police officers. The result is supported by the work of Quine (2003) who described that workplace bullying has been recognized as a major occupational stressor which further leads a person to psychological distress, physical illness, and career damage stages. The result was also supported by the research that employees who faced severe workplace harassment had more chances to face psychological distress and severe mental disorders like post-traumatic stress disorder (Attell, Brown, & Treiber, 2017).

Moreover, results showed that there was a significant relationship between work overload and psychological distress. Similar results were revealed by Prasanty et al. (2018) which showed that there was a significant relationship between workload and psychological distress and their weak positive correlation showed that total workload and psychological distress would increase together slightly.

It was also revealed that in married working women, there was significantly less psychological distress as compared to single ones or vice versa. Moreover, research suggested that single women physicians had faced severe burnout because of psychological distress. This study by Asha et al. (2018) supported the results of present research that married females face less psychological distress in their working place.

Secondly, it was hypothesized that workplace harassment was positive predictor of psychological distress. Results of the hypothesis showed that workplace harassment was a positive predictor of psychological distress. Similar results were depicted by Nielsen and Hetland (2012) who found in a longitudinal study that the workplace harassment explained a significant variance in psychological distress in employees. Barnett, Brennan, and Lee (2018) found that workplace bullying predicts psychological distress in female employees. Zafar, Khan, Siddiqui, Jamali, and Razzak (2016) studied workplace violence and self-reported psychological distress, coping with post-traumatic stress, mental distress, and burnout among physicians working in the emergency departments compared to other specialties in Pakistan. The results showed that workplace violence positively predicted psychological distress in physicians.

Thirdly, it was hypothesized that work overload would likely to predict psychological distress. Results of present study revealed that work overload was not the positive predictor of psychological distress. Results were consistent with previous research that Gilani and Cunningham (2017) showed that the work overload is not the positive predictor of psychological distress. Another research revealed that work factors such as work overload and stress did not predict psychological distress (Marchand, Juster, Lupien, & Durand, 2016). As indicated by the work of police officers, work over-burden was not appeared as high as in other departments. Their long working hours and their challenging work routine increases their psychological distress. Psychological disturbance turns into the part of their daily life routine because of their hectic work routine.

Fourthly, it was hypothesized that work overload would moderate the relationship between workplace harassment and psychological distress in female police officers. The results revealed that work overload was not a moderator in the relationship between workplace harassment and psychological distress among female police officers. The result is supported by the research of Gohar, Saleem, and Alian (2014) which concluded that work overload was a weak moderator of psychological distress in employees. Courcy, Morin, and Madore (2019) also reported that social support and work overload did not moderate psychological distress in employees. ANOVA analysis suggested that there was a significant difference on work overload along designations (SHOs, sub-inspectors, & inspectors) of police officers, whereas SHOs had more work overload than sub-inspectors and inspectors. The result was supported by the findings of Gilboa, Shirom, Fried, and Cooper (2008) which revealed that SHOs faced more work overload because they are in-charge of police stations and had multiple roles and responsibilities including case filing, writing reports, and interacting with various people. Therefore, their workload is more than the other officers (Samnani & Singh, 2016).

As Pakistan has a patriarchal society, women are exploited at all levels and women rarely take actions against them. Even female police officers, who are seen as an epitome of women empowerment, face harassment and fail to gather the courage to speak against it due to the societal pressure on them (Hadi, 2017). Hence, it is the need of the hour to remove the taboo associated with the phenomenon of harassment in order to encourage and empower women to speak up against it. This will not only lead to greater stability in their personal lives, but also in their professional efficacy.

CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS

The study confirms the view that workplace harassment has a positive relationship with psychological distress. Workplace harassment is a positive predictor of psychological distress. This study will contribute in indigenous literature highlighting role of workplace harassment, work overload, and psychological distress in female police officers. Awareness campaign can be helpful to the female police officers, so that they can well manage their psychological distress through addressing element of sexual harassment at their workplace may be through assertive training. The present research will provide guidelines to the police authorities to make appropriate strategies for female police officers and try to control harassment for efficient work performance and mitigate a healthy working environment for women, so that they can work better.

LIMITATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

Sample was taken only from Lahore; it can be taken from police stations of different cities to be more generalized. Quantitative method was used in the present study. In future, longitudinal research using present study’s variables can be more help to understand the effect of workplace harassment and work overload. In-depth interviews may also be helpful to better understand the harassment and related factors. Workplace harassment is also related with other variables. In future other related variables can also be assessed such as job satisfaction. Role of these variables in psychological distress among male police officers can also be studies based upon their reported experiences of harassment, work overload, and psychological distress. The variance in regression equation for this study is very small because of less sample size dependent on the availability of the female police officers. More variables should be explored for better results and variance equation.

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