Self-efficacy, job stress and motivation as predictors of psychological wellbeing among operation officers of Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps

Abstract

This study examined self-efficacy, job stress and motivation as predictors of psychological well-being among operation officers of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC). One hundred and ninety-six (N =196) operation officers of Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (Male = 128, Female = 68, Mean age = 34.20) constitute the respondents. They were sampled from Lagos State Command using purposive sampling technique. The hypotheses were tested with the multiple regression analysis. Results showed that self-efficacy, job stress and work motivation jointly contributed 20% to overall psychological well-being of the operation officers at NSCDC. Participants who reported high self-efficacy significantly had higher scores on autonomy, environmental mastery, positive relations and purpose in life sub-scales of the criterion variable. Intrinsic and identified motivation of the operation officers contributed significantly to the variance explained in the subscales of the criterion variable while extrinsic and Introjected motivation have no significant influence on the officers' wellbeing. Job stress was not a significant predictor of psychological wellbeing of the officers. Demographic variables such as educational qualification, age, job status, years of experience and marital status predicted 24% of the variance explained in the criterion variable. Operation officers with 11 - 16 years' experience (X = 50.47) reported significantly better psychological well-being (X = 46.03) than those with 6 - 10 years' experience. These findings have implications for developing interventions to improve psychological wellbeing of the security operatives in Nigeria, especially among employees at Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps.