Job Engagement and Coping Strategies as Moderators of the Relationship between Occupational Stress and Emotional Burnout among Police Officers in the Eastern Cape, South Africa

Globally, police officers are exposed to gruesome street violence and it is their duty to curb that
violence. In other words, police work is characterised by experiences that are mostly stressful. This
study seeks to investigate the extent to which job engagement and coping strategies can ameliorate
the degree of emotional burnout among police officers suffering from occupational stress. Calls have
been made for research that investigates factors that can ameliorate the level of emotional burnout
among police officers emanating from occupational stress. The study used quantitative approach to
test the hypothesis with a sample of 377 police officers. Through correlation and regression analysis,
job engagement and coping strategies were found to be significant moderators of the relationship
between occupational stress and emotional burnout (β3=-0.108; t=-2.054; p=0.041). Police managers
are recommended to promote job engagement and the use of coping strategies among their
subordinates to minimize emotional burnout and its adverse effects. This study found job engagement
and coping strategies to be significant moderators between occupational stress and emotional
burnout. No previous study seems to have directly studied the combined moderator effects of Job
engagement and coping strategies on the relationship between occupational stress and emotional
burnout.