Quality of Work-Life and Stress Management in a Rural Sample of Primary School Teachers: An Intervention Study

AbstractWorkloads, roles, and demands in rural schools have been shown to be stressful and this appears to affect the quality of work-life of workers compared to urban locations. Consequently, employees in rural areas become vulnerable to mental health problems and psychological disturbances, psychologists are underrepresented. To date, there is little or no literature on the roles of rural community-based psychologists that may primarily engage in clinical and non-clinical services in Nigeria. With this in mind, we studied the effect of a rational emotive occupational health intervention on the quality of work-life and stress management among primary school teachers in rural community schools in Nigeria. To achieve this, we adopted a blinded and randomized control design study where 101 rural primary schoolteachers were recruited and assigned to intervention and control groups. Those in the intervention group received a 12-session programme while the comparison group received conventional counselling. Two self-report measures were utilized in assessing the participants using the quality of work-life scale and occupational stress index. Data collected were analyzed using MANOVA analysis. The MANOVA analysis results showed the improved perception of quality of work-life and stress management that were due to rational emotive occupational health intervention. Therefore, the study recommended that there should more efforts by helping professionals to integrate REBT into workforc...
Source: Journal of Rational-Emotive and Cognitive-Behavior Therapy - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research