Work-Related Stress, Quality of Life, and Coping Mechanism Among Lecturers in a Tertiary Educational Institution in Anambra State, Nigeria

Abstract

Work-related stress (WRS) is a highly prevalent and pervasive problem that can result in loss of productivity and deterioration of lecturer’s health. Lecturing work requires coping with some of the stressful situations found in any workplace. The study determined the work-related stress, coping mechanisms, and quality of life among lecturers at Nnamdi Azikiwe University (NAU). Method:This was a cross-sectional survey involving 283 lecturers consecutively recruited from NAU. The Health and Safety Executive Work Related stress (HSE-WRS), Work-Related Quality of life (WRQL), and Brief-cope Questionnaires (BCQ) were applied to assess the participant's work-related stress, quality of work life, and coping mechanism(CM) respectively. Data were analyzed using Spearman rank and Mann-Whitney U tests at a 0.05 level of significance. Result: Age, years of practice, and academic rank had no statistically significant relationship with work-related stress with p-values given as: p=0.96, p =0.9, and 0.21 respectively. Age and gender were significantly related to the coping mechanism with p-values: p=0.00 and p= 0.01 respectively. The quality of life of lecturers was significantly associated with age with p-values of 0.03. The years of practice have no statistically significant association with coping mechanisms. Conclusions: there was a statistically significant relationship between age and active coping; there was a statistically significant relationship between gender and work-related stress; there was no statistically significant relationship between years of experience and QOWL; the QOWL of lecturers had a statistically significant correlation with their age, and gender affected the coping mechanism of lecturers at NAU. Also, this study revealed that male lecturers coped better with the rigorous demands of the job in contrast to female lecturers