The purpose of the current study was to investigate whether family relations influence police officers' current levels of work-related stress. More specifically, the goal was to determine whether growing up in a police family, whereby one or both parents were in law enforcement, has any influence on officers' current levels of job stress. Participants consisted of 188 patrol officers recruited from California and New York, using a convenience sampling method. Participants were each given two self-report surveys to complete: the Police Stress Survey (PSS) and the Cynicism Scale.

Analysis was conducted using two multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVA), one repeated MANOVA, and one independent t test. Four hypotheses were predicted and tested for significance. Statistically significant findings suggest that officers, regardless of family background, experience a greater level of stress from the physiological and psychological stressors associated with police work than the organizational/administrative stressors. Additionally, officers, whose police parent was involved in a critical incident and did not have a healthy retirement, rated organizational/administrative stressors more stressful than officers, whose police parent was involved in a critical incident, but had a healthy retirement.

Policing is a very stressful occupation and the factors that impact current levels of work related stress are poorly understood. High levels of job stress have been found to have immense psychological and physiological effects on officers' overall well-being. These stressors, in turn, can lead to poor behavioral outcomes such as substance abuse, health concerns, and suicide. A clearer understanding of the factors that may impact stress levels for police officers can be harnessed to create or modify programs that give awareness to these factors and promote ways to better manage stress levels. Implications of the findings and future research directions are discussed.