Investigation of perceived stress level and just world belief of units fighting crime: The case of criminal police laboratory

Security forces face many stressful situations professionally. These situations are seen as an inevitable part of their work. The training of police officers is deliberately provided in stressful environments so that they can function at their best and become accustomed to this situation while performing their duties. Although the training process aims to increase their resilience to stress, inevitably, they are often confronted with severe stressful situations that they find difficult to cope with. Stress for police officers arises from many sources and affects their behavior, emotions and thoughts. Understanding police stress is much more complex than examining the job from a single perspective. The main purpose of this study is to examine the perceived stress levels and just world beliefs of crime-fighting units together with their sub-dimensions and to fill the gap in the literature. The population of the study consists of 104 personnel working in Istanbul Criminal Police Laboratory. The sample consists of 100 participants who accepted to participate in the study and completed the scales completely and completely. Personal Information Form, Perceived Stress Scale and Just World Belief Scale were used as data collection tools. As a result of the study, it was understood that employees with high perceived stress levels had lower just world beliefs than employees with low perceived stress levels. In addition, it was determined that as the belief in a just world decreases, the perception of stress/discomfort and self-efficacy also decreases.