Occupational Stress as a Predictor of Mental Health Status of Universities Lecturers in South-East Nigeria

The focus of this study was to determine occupational stress as a predictor of mental health status of universities lecturers in south-east Nigeria. three research questions and three hypotheses guided the study. The study adopted the correlation survey research design. A sample of 940 lecturers were selected using the multistage sampling procedure. The instrument adopted for data collection is the Occupational Stress Inventory Revised Edition (OSI-R) which was developed by Samuel H. Osipow in 1998 and The Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS-21) developed by Lovibond and Lovibond in 1983. The administration of the instrument was done through direct delivery approach to the Lectures, in administering the instrument, A total of 920 (100%) questionnaires were administered with a retrieval rate of 902 (98%). Data collected were analyzed using multiple regression analysis. The study revealed that occupational stress of lecturers between 20-40 years of age had contributed to 51.0 percent and is a significant predictor of their mental health, occupational stress of lecturers within 40 years and above had contributed to 72.0 percent of their mental health and occupational stress of lecturers within 40 years of age is a significant predictor of their mental health. the findings further revealed that that occupational stress of lecturers jointly with age had contributed to 72.0 percent and 6.2 percent respectively of their mental health and occupational stress and age of lecturers is a significant joint predictor of their mental health. Based on the strength of this findings, conclusions were drawn and recommendations made among others that Routine medical check on the mental health status of lecturers should be sponsored by federal and state governments for lecturers in federal and state institutions respectively. Keywords: Occupation, Stress, Occupational Stress, Mental Health, Lecturers, Universities DOI: 10.7176/JEP/12-34-04 Publication date: December 31st 202