Running Head: Journal Article Review 1
Post-traumatic stress disorder and occupational characteristics of police officers in Republic
of Korea
Liberty University
CJUS 620
Journal Article Review 2
Article reviewed
June-Hee Lee, I. K.-U. (2016, March). Post-traumatic stress disorder and occupational
characteristics of police officers in Republic of Korea: a cross-sectional study.
Occupational and environmental medicine, 6(2). Retrieved from
https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/6/3/e009937.info
The journal article, “Post-traumatic stress disorder and occupational characteristics
of police officers in Republic of Korea: a cross-sectional study,” aims to evaluate the police
officers job characteristics and its relation to the risk of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
(PTSD) among south Korean police. Through a cross sectional study, the authors aimed to
establish how job related trauma increases the risk or causes psychological problems such as
PTSD.
South Korea has a lower police to civilian ratio as compared to other developed
countries such as the USA, Germany, France and Britain. As of 2016 one south Korean police
offer served 498 people in sharp contrast to an officer in the USA serving 351 persons and a
German officer serving 320 people. Over the years the number of police emergency calls has
significantly increased. Between 2010 and 2011 there was a 16.4% increase in police
emergency calls while the number of active police officers only increased by 1%[CITATION
Jun16 \p 1 \l 2057 ]. This shows the increased risk of active duty police officers encountering
traumatic events that may kick-start a chain of psychological issues leading to Post-traumatic
stress disorder. Similar to other emergency services such as fire fighters and active military
personnel who have been to war this paper makes a clear relation between the duties of police
officers and their exposure to events that may place them at risk of PTSD.
Through an Impact of event scale questionnaire, the authors first profiled police
officers according age, sex, rank and current department. The questionnaire was administered
through the police intranet and received feedback from 20,780 officers. Among the responses
202 incomplete questionnaires, 7025 responses that hadn’t experienced any traumatic event
Journal Article Review 3
in the year and 1700 responses that had experienced their first traumatic event in the last one
month were excluded. Other exclusions included 8036 responses that had traumatic events
more than a year ago. This left 3817 responses as the data set to be analysed. This is by far
the greatest number of police officers to be examined and analysed under any Post Traumatic
Stress Disorder research in the country. The questionnaire had 22 questions each assigned a
score of 0 to 4 marks. Respondents who had a total score of greater than 26 (≥26) were
classified as high risk. All results from the questionnaire were analysed using SAS software
(V.9.3; SAS Institute Inc., Cary, North Carolina, USA)[CITATION Jun16 \p 3 \l 2057 ]. The
χ2 test was used to evaluate the age, sex, department, rank and frequency and type of
traumatic event experienced by the reference group and the other groups. Finally, logistic
regression by grade and department was used for further analysis of the results.
The results showed the general characteristics of the data set was 1574 officers were
in their 40s (41.24%), 1237 officers were in their 30s (32.41%), 709 officers were in their 50s
(18.57%) and 297 were in their 20s (7.78%). The majority of respondents were men at
94.47%(n=3606) while women were 5.53% (n=211). The Police Precinct had the greatest
number of respondents (n=1657; 43.41%). The Public Safety Department had 831
respondents (21.77%), the Detective Division had 355 respondents (9.30%), the Investigation
Department had 263 respondents (6.89%), the Traffic Affairs Management Department had
300 respondents (7.86%), the Public Security Department had 132 respondents (3.46%) and
the Police Administration Department had 110 respondents (2.88%). The Intelligence and
National Security Division had 78 respondents (2.04%), the Riot Police Company had 58
respondents (1.52%), and the Office of Inspection & Public Complaints had 33 respondents
(0.86%). This study included 1541 Assistant Inspectors (40.37%), 938 Inspectors (24.57%),
664 police officers (17.40%), 535 senior police officers (14.02%) and 120 senior Inspectors
(3.14%). Only 19 respondents held a rank at or above the level of Superintendent. The
Journal Article Review 4
majority of respondents had experienced a traumatic event and 192 respondents were
involved in direct combat through shooting. The Police Precinct had the greatest proportion
of high-risk respondents (45.95%), and 43.59% of the Intelligence and National Security
Division respondents were classified as high risk. The proportions of high-risk respondents
were 43.33% in the Traffic Affairs Management Department, 42.24% in the Public Safety
Department, 37.46% in the Detective Division, 36.50% in the Investigation Department,
34.09% in the Public Security Department, 33.33% in the Office of Inspection & Public
Complaints, 29.31% in the Riot Police Company and 28.18% in the Police Administration
Department[CITATION Jun16 \p 5 \l 2057 ].
The results showed an increase in the risk of PTSD among police officers in
comparison to a 2007 study that revealed 33.3% of police officers are at highest risk of
PTSD. With the current results at 41.11% of the respondents this shows an increase of 7.81%.
The results also confirmed the earlier hypotheses that police officers are at higher risk of
post-traumatic stress as compared to other emergency services such as firefighters and
paramedics. The official results of the risk of PTSD among firefighters placed the figures at
13.7% meaning police officers are three times more likely to have PTSD as compared to
firefighters.
Despite offering the public an insight of PTSD in the police service the paper has a
few limitations. The researchers failed to take into account the phases of PTSD which are
time bound. Taking data excluding traumatic events occurring in the past month and all in the
previous year failed to show the acute or chronic phase of PTSD among police officers.
Secondly, general respondent characteristics that may play a critical role in PTSD were not
included in the questionnaire such as education, marital status, number of dispatches,
smoking, level of physical fitness and alcohol consumption. Thus the risk of PTSD cannot be
associated with social support or lifestyle habits from this results. Finally, bias may exist in
Journal Article Review 5
the results as the cross-sectional study used self-reported outcomes. Future research should
aim to look at the impact of general characteristic respondents as relationships have been
found to impact PTSD among patients. Despite these limitations the paper offers an in-depth
analysis of the relationship between police officers work and PTSD.
Journal Article Review 6
References
June-Hee Lee, I. K.-U. (2016, March). Post-traumatic stress disorder and occupational
characteristics of police officers in Republic of Korea: a cross-sectional stud.
Occupational and environmental medicine, 6(2), 223-240. Retrieved from
https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/6/3/e009937.info
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