| Abstract [eng] |
Ragauskas R. (2026). The Relationship Between Officers' Attitudes Toward Intimate Partner Violence, Occupational Burnout, and Perceived Organizational Support [master’s thesis]. Vilnius University, 66 p. In the modern police system, officers are expected not only to have a high level of professionalism, but also to have emotional resilience and empathy when dealing with sensitive social conflicts. Perceived organizational support becomes a critical factor in helping officers maintain psychological well-being and a constructive attitude toward service. The aim of this study was to examine the relationships between police officers' perceived organizational support, professional burnout, and their attitudes toward domestic violence. A total of 124 Lithuanian police officers (67 men and 57 women) participated in the study. The Copenhagen Burnout Questionnaire (CBI) was used to study the level of professional burnout, the Perceived Organizational Support Scale (POS) was employed to measure perceived organizational support, and the Domestic Violence Myth Acceptance Scale (DVMAS) was used to assess attitudes toward domestic violence. The study was conducted via an online survey, ensuring participant confidentiality and voluntary participation. Statistical data were processed using IBM SPSS Statistics 30.0.0 software: descriptive data analysis was performed, correlation analysis was applied to identify relationships, and the "PROCESS" (v5.0) macro was utilized for mediation modeling. The obtained results showed that police officers' perceived organizational support and professional burnout and attitudes towards violence in the intimate environment were closely related: as support increased, the level of burnout and acceptance of victim blaming decreased. Burnout was found to act as a mediator in the relationship between perceived organizational support and officers' attitudes toward violence. The study also revealed that increasing seniority of officers has a negative relationship with the level of perceived organizational support. Finally, there was no difference of burnout rates between married (or in partnership) and single officers. The findings suggest that officers' attitudes toward violence are less a result of personal views and more a consequence of systemic emotional exhaustion. This highlights the necessity for police organizations to invest in psychological support as a tool to maintain professional empathy and objectivity when dealing with cases of intimate partner violence. |
