The role of religious coping on problematic alcohol consumption by police officers

Abstract

Problematic alcohol consumption by police officers is well documented in the literature. It also shows that critical incident stress is correlated with this behavior. A separate body of research indicates that religious coping exerts a moderate protective effect on various types of problematic behavior, including problematic alcohol consumption. We merge these literatures in an effort to determine if religious coping reduces problematic alcohol consumption by police officers and whether it mitigates the positive relationship between critical incident stress and problematic drinking. Data from the Police Stress and Domestic Violence in Police Families in Baltimore, Maryland, 1997–1999 are analyzed to examine these propositions (n = 1004). Results indicate that police officers with higher levels of religious coping were in fact less likely to report problematic alcohol consumption. However, religious coping did not mitigate the positive relationship between critical incident stress and problematic alcohol consumption. The implications of our findings and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Keywords:

• Problematic alcohol consumption
• police officers
• religious coping
• stress

Notes

1. Information about how the study’s aims were explained to respondents, who would have access to their surveys, and how their participation would be kept confidential are explained fully in Gershon (1999).

2. There are several limitations when using cross-sectional data, such as not directly testing the causal effect between religious beliefs and problematic alcohol consumption. This limitation is discussed further in the discussion section of the paper.

3. The survey originally asked about 9 potential critical incidents that police officers may encounter while on duty. Five of these events (i.e. shooting someone, being subject to an internal affairs investigation, responding to a call related to a chemical spill, being involved in a hostage situation, and experiencing a needle stick injury) were excluded from the index because these events were less frequent or even not experienced at all by the majority of officers. This practice is in concert with previous studies using these data (Zavala & Kurtz, 2016).

4. In an exploratory analysis (not shown) we examined the direct effect of religious coping on critical incident stress in a separate regression (OLS) model. Results showed a non-significant relationship in these data. Results are not shown or discussed in order to preserve space.

5. In an exploratory analysis (not shown) we included two interaction terms between age and sex and race/ethnicity and sex in the statistical models given that prior research and results from Table 2 indicate them to be associated with alcohol consumption and religious coping. However, results show a non-significant relationship in these data. The results are not shown or discussed in order to save space.

6. Given that no mediation effects were found, we did not compare the regression coefficients between models (Clogg et al., 1995).