Summary information

Study title

Eastern Finnish Police Officers 1995-1998: Health and Working Conditions

Creator

Kerkkänen, Paavo (University of Joensuu)

Study number / PID

FSD2580 (FSD)

urn:nbn:fi:fsd:T-FSD2580 (URN)

10.60686/t-fsd2580 (DOI)

Data access

Restricted

Series

Individual datasets

Individual datasets that do not belong to any series.

Abstract

This study investigated the health, working conditions, job satisfaction and sense of humour of police personnel in Eastern Finland. The data were collected in the years 1995 and 1998 by using questionnaires (a, b, c, h, i), interviews (e, f), health check-ups and fitness tests (g). The first questions in the occupational health care questionnaire (a) covered how occupational health care was arranged and how satisfied the respondents were with occupational health services. Several questions surveying the respondents' physical and psychosocial health were asked. The respondents were asked whether they desired or needed help and support from occupational health care for different health issues (e.g. losing weight, reducing stress). Factors deteriorating working conditions and job satisfaction were investigated (e.g. poor ergonomics, negative work environment). The second questionnaire (b) explored the respondents' work-related symptoms (headaches, anxiety, slight fever etc.) Views on job satisfaction were studied in another questionnaire (c), in which the respondents were asked to what extent they agreed with a number of statements relating to atmosphere at work, facilities, wages etc. Regarding the interviews in which the respondents' views on humour was studied (e, f), this dataset contains only the self-assessment variables. For this self-assessment, the respondents were requested to rate their own sense of humour on a scale of 4-10 (4 being the lowest). In 1998, the respondents were also asked how they would rate their sense of humour in a situation in which they were the target of good-humoured jokes and in a situation in which they were the target of malicious/agressive humour. The results of health check-ups and fitness tests (g) included, among others, height, weight and blood pressure measurements. Blood tests were performed on the respondents to investigate their cholesterol, HDL-cholsterol, gamma GT and hemoglobin levels. The fitness tests included the...
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Methodology

Data collection period

1995 - 1998

Country

Finland

Time dimension

Longitudinal: Cohort/Event-based

Analysis unit

Individual

Universe

Police officers and commanding officers in the town of Varkaus and the former province of North Karelia & criminal investigators in the NBI's (National Bureau of Investigation) Joensuu unit

Sampling procedure

Non-probability: Purposive

Kind of data

Quantitative

Data collection mode

Face-to-face interview
Self-administered questionnaire
Physical measurements and tests

Access

Publisher

Finnish Social Science Data Archive

Publication year

2012

Terms of data access

The dataset is (B) available for research, teaching and study.

Related publications

  • Kerkkänen, Paavo (2003). Huumorintaju ja terveys itäsuomalaisten poliisien työssä 1995-1998. Joensuu: Joensuun yliopisto. Joensuun yliopiston yhteiskuntatieteellisiä julkaisuja; 62.