Association between Occupational Stress and Respiratory Symptoms among Lecturers in Universiti Putra Malaysia

Mohmed Yusof Nur Aqilah,Jalaludin Juliana

doi:10.5539/gjhs.v4n6p160

Abstract

There was considerable evidence that a subject’s psychological status may influence respiratory sensations and that some subjects may experience respiratory symptoms regardless of the presence of a respiratory disease. The objective of this study was to determine the association between occupational stress and respiratory symptoms among lecturers. This cross sectional study was conducted in Universiti Putra Malaysia, involved 61 lecturers from various faculties. Job Content Questionnaire (JCQ) and questionnaires based on American Thoracic Society were used to collect the data on socio-demography, stress level and respiratory symptoms. High level of occupational stress (high strain) was determined among 16 of the respondents (26.2%). Breathlessness was the common symptom experienced by the respondents. Female lecturers were significantly experienced high stress level compared to male (p=0.035). They were also significantly having more breathlessness symptom compared to male lecturer (p=0.011). Study highlighted in study population, gender plays a significant role that influenced level of occupational stress and also gender has role in resulting occupational stress level and respiratory symptoms. There was no significant association between occupational stress and respiratory symptoms. It can be concluded that this group of lecturers of Universiti Putra Malaysia did not experienced high occupational stress level. Occupational stress level was not statistically significantly associated with all respiratory symptoms being studied.

Highlights

Occupational stress was a complex biopsychosocial situation and has been recognized as major health hazard for employees (Sun et al, 2011)
A total number of 136 lecturers have been informed that they were randomly selected to be involved in the study
Majority of the respondents had worked as lecturers in the range from 4 to 14 years

Summary

Introduction

Occupational stress was a complex biopsychosocial situation and has been recognized as major health hazard for employees (Sun et al, 2011). According to Salo (2002), stress comes from imbalanced situations where the demands on an employee exceed or undervalue the employee’s actual conditions, or situation, where needs and goals were continually frustrated. Researches reveal that teaching profession was an occupation with high risk of stress, and the working conditions in schools place teachers at high risk for burnout (Shun, 2009). Kyriacou et al (2000) stated that teacher stress can be defined as experience of teacher of unpleasant negative emotions, such as anger, frustration, anxiety, depression and nervousness resulting from some aspect of their work as educator. Academic university lecturers in China suffer a rather serious occupational stress where the average raw score of Perceived Stress Questionnaire was 91.0% which is 4.7% and 9.8% higher than the levels obtained from doctors and teachers in primary and high schools respectively (Sun et al, 2011)

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion