Correctional employees are recognized to underreport stress and stress symptoms and are known to have a culture that discourages appearing "weak" and seeking psychiatric help. This study assesses underreporting of stress and emotions. Additionally, it evaluates the relationships between stress and emotions on health behaviors. Correctional employees (n=317) completed physical assessments to measure body mass index (BMI), and surveys to assess perceived stress, emotions, and health behavior (diet, exercise, and sleep quality). Stress and emotion survey items were evaluated for under-reporting via skewness, kurtosis, and visual assessment of histograms. Structural equation modeling evaluated relationships between stress/emotion and health behaviors. Responses to stress and negatively worded emotions were non-normally distributed whereas responses to positively-worded emotions were normally distributed. Emotion predicted diet, exercise, and sleep quality whereas stress predicted only sleep quality. As stress was a poor predictor of health behaviors and responses to stress and negatively worded emotions were non-normally distributed it may suggests correctional employees are under-reporting stress and negative emotions.
Keywords: Correctional employees; Emotion; Health behavior; Stress; Structural equation modeling.