Psychosocial risk factors and distress in higher education teachers

• Autor(a) principal: Souto, Isabel Maria Alves de
• Data de Publicação: 2018
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10773/26221
• topic: Psychosocial risks; Distress; Anxiety; Higher education teachers; Occupational health

It is known that occupational health problems in teachers are prevalent. Several authors point out the importance of the work Psychosocial Risk factors (PRs) this phenomenon. Particularly, in Higher Education (HE), teacher work is marked by a climate of constant innovation, turbulence (alteration of the teacher's role and teacher-student interaction) and a high level of personal, professional and scientific, which requires the performance of different functions. It is noticed that this work context counts with high number of content or context of the work PRs, that can cause high levels of distress and anxiety, and whose physical, psychological and institutional impact is inseparable. The present study intends to investigate the PRs, anxiety and distress underlying work reality in HE teachers. An empirical study was carried out involving 97 HE teachers, working at University of Aveiro departments (n=50) and Polytechnic’s Schools (n=47). To this assessment, the following instruments were used: Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10), the Resilient Coping Brief Scale (EBCR), the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) and the Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire (COPSOQ, medium version) to a group teacher working on Aveiro University. Our study points to four main findings: 1) total cumulative functions play a role in HE teacher’s overload; 2) a large percentage of responders presented significant psychological distress and anxiety symptoms, being this effect strongly higher in females; 3) work demands dimensions represent most health risk, as well with Health/ Well-being dimensions presenting the most significant correlations for distress increase in HE teachers; 4) Work-family conflict, meaning of work, emotional demands, depressive symptoms, stress and sleeping problems are significant predictors of both distress and anxiety levels. The present study responds to the research gap in the work-related context of ES teachers, constituting as the first step towards the construction of intervention tools integrated in the specific work specificities