Assessment of Occupational Stress among High School Teachers of Ahmedabad City, India

Abstract

Background: Apart from teaching, school teachers are involved in much of the school related work which may eventually affect their psychological well being. It is important to know the psychological impacts of such work related stress among school teachers. Objectives: To find out the prevalence of variables of the occupation stress among high school teachers using scale; To find out association between the selected personal variables with different component of occupational stress as defined in The School Teachers Job Stressor Scale-STJSS; Methods: STJSS was used as a tool for data collection. The sample size was calculated and the data were analyses for components of occupational stress (Anxiety, Depression, Lack of sleep, loss of appetite and other issues like additional workload, exhaustion, and support from peers) by selecting 36 school teachers from each zone. Statistical analysis was done using proportions, Kurtosis-Skewness and Chi-square test. .Results: Among a total of 218 school teachers, Male teachers had significantly higher proportions of anxiety (72.72%) and depression (76.66%) than female counterparts. On the other hand, female teachers (38.88%) were more likely to feel “additional work-load” than the males (21.09%). Depression was more common in overweight (18.51%) and obese (23.07%) participants.Conclusion: Demographic variables like age and gender had significant associations with occupational stressors among the school teachers. The need of psychological improvements among school teachers should be the area of focus including school health.