Stress and Coping Strategies of University Teachers in Pakistan

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to identify the perceived job stress
and stress coping strategies used by the teachers in Pakistani universities.
The study used a survey research design comprising two segments: a)
first section identifies how the presence of negative factors and the
absence of positive factors cause stress for university teachers in their
careers. b) The second part identifies the coping strategies used by them
to explore the ways for effective stress management. The data was
collected by the instruments Perceived Job Stressors (Kanner, Kafry, &
Pines, 1978) and The Coping Inventory (Carver, Scheier, & Weintraub,
1989) to identify the stressors and the preferred coping strategies used by
the faculty. The data indicate that university faculty experience stress
both due to presence of negative factors and absence of positive factors.
The most important stress coping strategy used by them was positive reinterpretation & growth, followed by turning to religion, planning, suppression of competing activities, active coping, restraining coping, seeking social support for emotional reasons, acceptance, mental disengagement, alcohol-drug disengagement, focusing on & venting of emotions. Moreover, age of teachers influence the adaptation of above  mentioned three coping strategies namely positive reinterpretation & growth, turning to religion, and mental disengagement.