Work-related stress, quality of life, and coping mechanism among lecturers in a Tertiary Educational Institution in Anambra State, Nigeria

Abstract

IntroductionWork-related stress (WRS) is a highly prevalent and pervasive problem that can result in loss of productivity and deterioration of a lecturer’s health. Lecturing work requires coping with some of the stressful situations found in any workplace to have a favourable quality of work life. The study determined the influence of sex, years of teaching experience, and academic rank on work-related stress, coping mechanisms, and quality of work life among lecturers at Nnamdi Azikiwe University (NAU).MethodThis was a cross-sectional survey involving 283 lecturers consecutively recruited from NAU after proportionate randomization of the lecturers in 101 departments. 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 Kruskal Wallis and Mann-Whitney U tests at a 0.05 level of significance.ResultSex, years of teaching experience, and academic rank had statistically significant influence on 14 subsets of coping mechanism with p-values </=0.01. Years of teaching experience had a statistically significant influence on work-related stress (p = 0.00). Sex, years of teaching experience, and academic rank did not influence work-related quality of life in a statistically significant way.ConclusionThere was a statistically significant influence of sex, years of teaching experience, and academic rank on coping strategies of lecturers. Also, a statistically significant influence of years of teaching experience on work related stress of lecturers was ascertained and revealed that male lecturers coped better with the rigorous demands of the job compared to female lecturers.