The job of police officer is considered to be highly stressful and much of the police stresses are work-related. This study aimed to determine the level of stress and coping strategies of the police officers, it also sought to compare the difference in the level of police stress and use of coping strategies across varying age, gender, civil status, department assigned, rank, and length of service. This is an analytical cross-sectional study conducted among 298 police officers, of PNP under Zamboanga City territory. Stress level was assessed by Police Stress Questionnaires (PSQ) utilizing both Organizational Police Stress and Operational Police Stress questionnaire, and Brief COPE Inventory questionnaire to elicit coping methods. SPSS v 23 software was used for descriptive analysis, t-test and ANOVA with Bonferroni test were utilized to explore the differences between variables. More than one third, 105out of 298 (35.2%) police officers were under moderate range of stress. While, praying or meditating was identified by 113 (37.85%) police officers, as the most frequently used coping strategy. When level of stress was compared under organizational police stress, there was no significant difference in terms of age, gender, civil status, department assigned and rank, however, a significant difference was noted in the level of stress in terms of station assigned and length of service with p-values of (0.000) and (0.007) respectively. Under operational police stress, results were similar with organizational stress. The ratings of stress did not differ in terms of age, gender, civil status, department assigned and rank when operational stress level of police officers were compared. Then again, there were significant differences in terms of station assigned (p-value of 0.000) and length of service (p-value of 0.001). With regards to use of coping strategies, no significant differences were found in terms of police officer’s demographic and occupational characteristics. This study concluded that the stress level of police officers of Philippine National Police

Keyword: Level of stress and coping strategies Police officers of Philippine National Police