Abstract

Psychological well-being of police personnel may be dependent on the kind of support they received in the organisation, especially in the heat of challenges and stress encountered in the course of performing their duties. Against this backdrop, this study investigated how the levels of perceived organisational support (low, moderate and high) influence the dimensions (control of self and events, happiness, social involvement, self-esteem, mental balance and sociability) and overall psychological well-being of police personnel in Nigeria. Purposive, proportionate, and accidental sampling techniques were used to select 1193 police personnel (652 males; 541 females) from two states in Nigeria. Their ages ranged from 24 to 59 years with a mean age of 38.08 years (SD = 8.27). They responded to measures of perceived organisational support and psychological well-being. Results of the One-way ANOVA and Bonferroni’s post hoc analyses showed that perceived organisational support significantly influenced all the dimensions of psychological well-being, except mental balance, such that police personnel who had high level of perceived organisational support  had higher control of self and events, happier, socially more involving, had higher positive evaluation of themselves, more sociable, and higher overall psychological well-being than those who had moderate or low level of perceived organisational support. This study recommends that police organisations and the supervisory agencies should institute psychological programs that target and improve the dimensions, with special focus on mental balance, and overall psychological well-being of police personnel.

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