Survey for Spouses and Partners of Law Enforcement Officers

Exit this survey

 

Dear spouse or partner of a law enforcement officer:

You are invited to participate in a national research study investigating the stressors for and coping techniques of spouses or partners of law enforcement officers. This study is being conducted by Bethany Hanson, the wife of an officer and graduate student in the School of Social Work at St. Catherine University/University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. This study is supervised by Dr. Carol Kuechler, a faculty member at the school. You are being invited as a possible participant in this study because of your involvement with the Los Angeles Police Department Spouse Support Group, Wives Behind the Badge, or the Law Enforcement Family Support Network.

The purpose of this study is to examine stressors and coping techniques of officers’ spouses or partners in order to gain an understanding of such stressors and coping techniques to inform future therapeutic interventions or programming for officers and their families.

If you decide to participate, you will be asked complete the following survey, providing demographic information, opinions on the stressors you experience related your spouse/partner's job, and the coping techniques that you utilize. This study will take approximately 10-15 minutes to complete and is designed to be taken once per person.

There are no known risks or direct benefits for participating in this study. However, you may contact the Los Angeles Police Department spouse support group, Wives Behind the Badge, the Law Enforcement Family Support Network, or your spouse/partner's Employee Assistance Program if you have questions or concerns about your experiences.

All participants in this study will remain anonymous as this survey is posted online and does not require any name or email address to enter the survey, nor are they recorded in any way. The demographic information collected is only for the purpose of understanding the context of the findings. There will be no way to identify specific respondents.

The anonymous results will be kept in a password- protected computer database and only I or my advisor will have access to the records while I work on this project. I will finish analyzing the data by May 31, 2010. All gathered data will be kept indefinitely for future research.

Participation in this study is voluntary. Your decision whether or not to participate will not affect your current or future relations with the Los Angeles Police Department Spouse Support Group, Wives Behind the Badge, the Law Enforcement Family Support Network, the University of St. Thomas, or St. Catherine University in any way. You are free to select the “do not wish to disclose” option for any question and may stop at any time without affecting these relationships, and no further data will be collected. Completion of the survey implies consent.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me, Bethany Hanson, at (763) 300-1719 or via email at bjrobinson@stthomas.edu. If you have any questions later, my advisor Dr. Carol F. Kuechler, (651) 690-6719, will gladly answer them. If you have other questions or concerns regarding the study and would like to talk to someone other than the researcher, you may contact John Schmitt, PhD, Chair of the St. Catherine University Institutional Review Board, at (651) 690-7739.

Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Bethany Hanson