The Team Leader for research on addressing occupational stress and mental health of Police officers in Nigeria, Prof. Ademola Ajuwon, has disclosed that interviews conducted in four states in the nation indicated that more than half of the officers in the Nigeria Police Force are highly stressed.
Prof. Ajuwon, of the College of Medicine, University of Ibadan, disclosed on Wednesday in his address during a presentation of research findings on implementation of a model intervention for stress prevention, management, and coping mechanisms in the Nigeria Police Force, which was held at the headquarters of the Oyo State Police Command, Eleyele, Ibadan.
The research which started in 2023, was funded by Tertiary Trust Fund (TETFund), with the project “Development of intervention for Prevention and Management of Stress Among Police Officers in Nigeria,” aimed at assessing the experience of stress by police officers.
Those at the event included the Commissioner of Police, Olugbenga Ayodeji Abimbola, senior police officers, and rank-and-file officers.
Personalities involved in conducting the research were the team leader, Prof. Bibilola Oladeji, Drs Musibau Titiloye, Mojisola Oluwasanu, and Adeyinka Adefolarin, CSP Patrick Okafor, Mr Makson Unogu, Mr. Oluwatobi Hussain, Mrs Olayinka Ajayi, and Ms. Ezine Uvere.
Prof. Ajuwon said that the research took them to four states – Akwa Ibom, Bauchi, Nasarawa, and Oyo states – to interview police officers, where it was found that more than half of them are “highly stressed.”
“Because of that, we came to Oyo State for a pilot intervention which included the training of 20 police officers as champions. After the training, we ask them to go back to their formations and train others. And they are doing the job excellently,” the team leader stated.
He said participants in the research work are of the belief that it is an important project that should be disseminated for the police to know what steps to take to manage stress.
He advised that with the training being moved around the police officers, they should adopt it as routine so that any new officer coming in would be trained.
Handing over packages of manuals addressed to the IGP, Chairman of the Police Service Commission, DIG Research and Planning, as well as Police Force Medical Director, among others, Prof Ajuwon said that it is hoped that stress management would be taken as a project.
In her presentation, one of the researchers, who is also a Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Ibadan, Prof. Bibilola Oladeji, spoke about how the project began with a survey of occupational stress and related mental health problems among police officers, with a back survey in four states in Nigeria.
“We interviewed over 1,200 police officers about the kinds of stress they face at work. We also look at how many have emotional problems, emotional distress, and mental health conditions.
“We divided stress into two types – occupational and organisational stress. Occupational stress has to do with their day-to-day operations, such as having to do overtime, the risks they face, and health-related issues, while the organisational one has to do with stress which is related to the way the police force is organised and all the bureaucracies associated with the work they do.
“This has to do with shortage of manpower, lack of adequate equipment and resources to do their jobs and not being properly trained in the use of new equipment. They also feel that the workload is not equally shared among police officers,” she explained.
Prof. Oladeji added: “We also looked at mental health problems and discovered that about five percent of the officers have emotional health problem called depression. Twenty two percent of them responded to the question about emotional distress. About three percent have anxiety and 16 percent of them use alcohol, which is not a good way to cope with stress.”
She said that one of the solutions to all of these is to train on the techniques they can use to manage stress, which is an intervention developed for them.
“Those we trained also train their colleagues on what stress is and identify when they are stressed, recognise how their bodies are reacting to it as well as relaxation techniques such as playing music, mindfulness, and coping mechanisms, among others,” she said.
Some police officers at the event attested to how the techniques they were trained in had helped.
In his remarks, the Commissioner of Police, Olugbenga Ayodeji Abimbola, promised to deliver the manuals handed over to the Command appropriately, adding that the research work would be implemented among police officers.
Credit: Tribune Online
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