THE levels of stress, exhaustion and depression among police officers in Scotland have been highlighted in a new study from a Canadian academic.

Research by professor Linda Duxbury, from Carleton University in Ottawa, was sponsored by the Scottish Police Federation (SPF) and surveyed officers across six Scottish divisions over May, June and September this year.

It found two-thirds of officers (67%) said they experienced stress daily as a result of having to deal with multiple competing demands simultaneously, and 64% said they suffered stress each day due to the number of calls they receive and a lack of resources to respond to them all.

More than three-quarters (71%) said they had gone to work while physically unwell in the last six months and more than a third (35%) turned up at work despite being mentally unwell during that period.

Four in five officers (79%) reported that a lack of staff caused stress, while 56% of officers at all ranks said they rarely or never received an uninterrupted break at work – the figure rose to 80% for officers at or above inspector rank.

A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: “Police officers and staff do an excellent job in often very difficult circumstances and it is right that they have access to appropriate support.”

She added the welfare and wellbeing of police officers is the responsibility of the chief constable, but pledged to support initiatives that help create a “safe, positive and healthy working environment”.

She went on: “This includes their occupational health service and employee assistance programme to aid officers and staff in caring for their mental health.

“A service-wide Wellbeing and Engagement survey will launch early in the new year. By protecting the police revenue budget in real terms, we are delivering an additional £100 million throughout this Parliament, with annual funding now more than £1.2 billion.”

Police Scotland deputy chief constable Fiona Taylor said: “The wellbeing of our officers and staff is a priority and we have a range of support mechanisms in place.

“An engagement and wellbeing survey will be carried out early next year.

“Response rates in the previous two surveys were lower than we had hoped for and we will be taking time to encourage as many people as possible to take part in the next one. In the meantime, we will continue to work closely with all our staff associations.”