“Lines Demarked”: A Way to Foster Occupational Health in Police Officers

Vânia Sofia Carvalho (), Maria José Chambel and Beatriz Marta
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Vânia Sofia Carvalho: CICPSI, Faculdade de Psicologia, Universidade de Lisboa, 1640-013 Lisbon, Portugal
Maria José Chambel: CICPSI, Faculdade de Psicologia, Universidade de Lisboa, 1640-013 Lisbon, Portugal
Beatriz Marta: CICPSI, Faculdade de Psicologia, Universidade de Lisboa, 1640-013 Lisbon, Portugal

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 24, 1-14

Abstract: Police officers are part of a demanding professional activity with a high risk of occupational health and work–family conflict, and this is a topic of relevance to understanding occupational health sustainability. Based on this, this study developed and tested a mediation model that accounts for the work–family conflict (WFC) in the relationship between work–family boundary segmentation and well-being (i.e., burnout and engagement). A sample of 291 police officers from Portugal was used, and the hypotheses were tested by using structural equation modeling methods implemented with Mplus. The results indicated that over nonstandard work schedules and unpredictable working hours, family–work segmentation was negatively related to WFC, and work–family segmentation was negatively related to family-to-work conflict. Moreover, WFC fully mediated the relationship between segmentation and engagement but only partially mediated the relationship between segmentation and burnout. Conversely, family-to-work conflict fully mediated the relationship between segmentation and burnout but was not related to engagement. Such results suggest that the occupational health of these professionals is interdependent on their opportunity to enact the segmentation strategy to manage the boundary between work and family domains. In terms of its practical implications, this study sheds light on the environmental conditions of police officers that can foster and sustain their well-being.

Keywords: work–family segmentation; work–family conflict; engagement; burnout; occupational health; well-being (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:24:p:16940-:d:1302477

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