Stress Experiences and Coping Strategies Among Employed Teachers of Ifugao State University During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic changed the teaching-learning modality around the world. These sudden changes, along with the health threats and uncertainty of COVID-19, made teachers feel stressed, including those in higher education institutions. Hence, a descriptive survey was conducted to assess the stress experiences and coping strategies of employed university teachers of Ifugao State University (IFSU), Ifugao, Philippines. It was found that most (82.54%) of the participating university teachers experienced moderate perceived stress. Moreover, as the reported frequency of experience with various stressors increased, so did their reported feelings of stress. Among the contributing stressors, health-related stressors were often experienced, finance-related and work-related stressors were sometimes experienced, while personal and well-being-related stressors were rarely experienced. It was also found that female university teachers were more vulnerable to health-related stressors than male university teachers. At the same time, single university teachers were more vulnerable to personal and well-being-related stressors than married university teachers. As the reported feelings of stress increased, so did the frequency of use of coping strategies. Approach-style coping strategies were used more than avoidance-style coping strategies. In addition, religious coping was often used, while humor coping was rarely used. IFSU could devise several ways to alleviate the stress of university teachers. These could help university teachers cope positively to retain high-quality teaching and promote a culture of resilience, problem-solving, and well-being.