Objectives The prevalence of depression in police officer is higher than in the general population. Police officers are often exposed to work place violence, long time work, shift work and other pcychosocial stressers. This study was conducted to evaluate the occupational factors associated with depressive symptomatology in police officer.

Method The study sample was 7476 police officers. A structured questionnaire was used to assess exposures to violence, shift working with jobs, health behaviours and sociodemographic factors. Subjects with depressive symptomatology was who experienced depressive symptom for continuously for more than 2 weeks within last 1year. And chronic work place violence exposed subjects was who experienced threat or complaint from work related people more than 4 times per week.

Results Prevalence of depressive symptom among subjects was 35.5% (n = 2622) and higher in subjects exposed to chronic violence. After adjusting covariates, the odds ratio of depression was 2.01 (95% CI; 1.80–2.25) for chronic work place violence exposed subjects (n = 2005, 27.11%), 1.20 (95% CI; 1.02–1.41) for shift working subjects (n = 6270, 85.68%).

Conclusions Our findings support the association workplace violence exposure between depressive symptomatology. Further study with more detailed work place violence exposure classification and measurement is need to confirm the association workplace violence and depressive symptomatology.