Ambulatory assessment of psychophysiological stress among police officers: A proof-of-concept study.

Occupational stress has been widely recognized as a global challenge and has received increased attention by the academic community. Ambulatory Assessment methodologies, combining psychophysiological measures of stress, offer a promising avenue for future prevention and/or rehabilitation stress research. Considering that policing is well known for being a particularly stressful occupation, Emergency Responders Officers (EROs) stress levels were investigated. Particularly, this study analyzed: (i) physiological stress data obtained during shifts and compared these data with baseline levels (days off), as well as (ii) with normative values for healthy populations; (iii) stress symptoms differences from beginning to end of shift; (iv) stress events and events intensity and (v) the acceptability and feasibility of this proof-of-concept study in a highly stressful occupation. A Geo-location event system was used to help retrospective accounts of psychological stress, combined with electrocardiogram (ECG) data and mobile self-reports, that include stress symptoms, event types and event intensity. Results suggest that EROs experience high levels of stress (both on-duty and off duty) when compared to healthy populations. Stress symptoms increase from the beginning to end of the shift. However, the mean events intensity was very low. It can be concluded that stress may not always be diagnosed when using merely self-reports. These findings highlight the importance of combining both self-report and physiological stress measures in occupational health contexts. Finally, results confirm the acceptability and feasibility of the multi-method used. Key implications for policy makers and applied practitioners in the area of occupational health and future research directions are discussed.