Mental Health Problems of Women Police Hails from Rural Areas

Globally, the profession of police personnel is many-sided. This is the most challenging profession subjugated by males, however more females are entering the police workforce. They juggle with personal and professional roles especially those who come from rural areas. In rural area the attitude of people towards working women is different. Most of the families thinks that a women should do all the house hold works perfectly and then she can go for her professional works. Moreover at work place they have to enrich themselves in communicating in official language and update themselves along to the current requirement of the work place. Initially most of them are able to cope with, but as days goes on they are incompetent to bring a balance and develop mental health problems. The struggles they face in their day today life at home and work causes many work life balance problems. When those work life balance problems prolonged without any relevant measures which may turn as serious mental health problems such as depression, anxiety and stress. Mental health is nurtured by emotional, psychological, and social well-being. The reasons behind those mental health problems can be divide into personal and organizational factors. Personal factors includes fatigue, lack of understanding from family and friends about work, working alone at night, feeling like always on the job, over time demands, not enough time available to spend with friends and family, work related activities on off days, limitation to social life and shift in work. Organisational factors covers staff shortages, red tapism, internal investigations, perceived pressure to volunteer free time, unequal sharing of work responsibilities, dealing with the court system, dealing with supervisors, inconsistent leadership style, favourism, dealing with co-workers and the need to be accountable for doing the job. If the mental health needs of women police who hails from rural area, get facilitated they can be more productive and that will contribute to the economic development of the country also. This literature review and analysis paper will describe mental health problems faced by rural women police and discuss some conceivable solutions.