Suicide Risk Factors of Royal Thai Police Officers

Abstract

This research study employed quantitative and qualitative methods and was aimed to investigate suicide risk factors among the Royal Thai Police officers and the social, environment and psychological factors causing the suicide. The quantitative method was used to collect data from 977 police officers in the Provincial Police Region 3, 5 and the Metropolitan Police Bureau using questionnaires while in-depth interviews with 8 qualified supervisors were conducted to obtain qualitative data from the police officers who were involved in the crime prevention policy as well as 9 psychiatrists and psychologists. Statistics used for data analysis were percentage, mean, standard deviation, the t-test, the F-test and Structural Equation Modeling by AMOS program. The study indicated that the majority of the police officers were male Police Senior Sergeant Major, working in the suppression line of the Metropolitan Police Bureau, whose ages were between 41-50 years, working for 21-30 years in the government civil service, Buddhist, married with no children, and have a bachelor's degree. Factors that affected the suicide risk level of the Royal Thai Police officers were social, surroundings and psychological factors. These, consisted of disputes in the family, having congenital disease, inadequacy of income, pressure from work, Suicide history in family or had been prosecuted. These factors were significantly associated with the Thai police officer’s suicide with the statistical significance at 0.05 levels. In addition, the result indicated that depression and impulsiveness were significantly related to suicide among the Thai police officers with statistical significance at 0.05 levels as well.