Research Of Relationship Between Occupational Stress And Health Among Rural Teachers

Teacher was a representative stressful occupation, and its occupation-related health problem had existed for a long time. Comparing with urban teachers, rural teachers were special in China for their worse worksite environment and basic occupational health care service, less payment, more stressful work-related relationship, and worse health condition. They had various kinds of physical and psychological problems, which were physical problems such as faucitis, digestive system disorder, centrum sickness, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular sickness and neurasthenic, and psychological problems such as anxiety, compulsion, dysphoria and off color, and sub-health Condition such as fatigue and insomnia.In general, the main occupational reasons for rural teacher's bad health included the several below. The first reason was the limitation of skills promoting, the lack of self-development and the gap between professional ability and teaching demands. The second reason was reform of personnel, which was appointment and it increased the job insecurity and worsened the work-related relationship. The third reason was the bad working condition and heavy load. So according to Karasek's occupational stress theory, the occupational stress was influenced by job demand and decision latitude. When someone with low decision latitude was not able to release or transfer the influence of job demand, he could show the related symptoms of stress. So it was necessary to research the occupational stress and its relationship with health among rural teachers. It was the first time to use Karasek's occupational stress theory to explore the status of occupational stress and the relationship with health among rural teachers. Chinese Version of Job Content Questionnaire (C-JCQ), Serf-rating Depression Scale (SDS), Self-rating Anxiety Scale (SAS) and Short Form 36 (SF-36) were used to survey occupational stress, psychological condition of anxiety and depression symptom, and quality of life, respectively. The research evaluated the construct validity and reliability of the C-JCQ, showed out the occupational stress degree, occupational stress characteristic, and the relationship with occupational stress, psychological condition and quality of life among rural teacher.1 Construct validity and reliability of the Chinese Version of Job Content Questionnaire (C-JCQ) among rural teachersBy random clustering, 522 rural teachers of 20 schools in 5 cities of Sichuan and Chongqing were investigated, and 448 available questionnaires were collected, including 193 male and 255 female. The validity and reliability of C-JCQ was evaluated by the output of principal components factor analysis and Cronbach's a among rural teachers, respectively.When construct validity was evaluated, 15 factors of eigenvalue＞1were calculated and their cumulative percentage was 65.5%. Factor 1, Factor 2, Factor 3, Factor 4, Factor 5, Factor 6 had more cumulative percentage, which was 42.0%. Factor 1, Factor 2, Factor 4, Factor 6 were associated with C-JCQ theory model. 38 items of 48 items C-JCQ were included in the above four factors. The distribution of items with maximum absolute value of component (＞0.35) was almost consistent with C-JCQ theory model.When reliability was evaluated, the Cronbach's a of three core dimensions was around 0.6, which were Decision Latitude (DL), Job Demand (JD) and Worksite Social Support (WSS). The Cronbach's a of Macro-level Decision Authority (MD) and Job Insecurity (JI) were less, and was -0.03 and -0.05, respectively.In conclusion, C-JCQ met with the social psychology survey demand, and was able to be used as the instrument of measuring occupational stress in rural teachers. 2 The degree and characteristic of occupational stress, and relationship between occupational stress and health effects among rural teachers2.1 The degree and characteristic of occupational stressIn the same object, Chinese Version of Job Content Questionnaire (C-JCQ), Self-rating Depression Scale (SDS), Self-rating Anxiety Scale (SAS) and Short Form 36 (SF-36) were used to survey occupational stress, psychological condition of anxiety and depression symptom, and life quality, respectively.The results indicated that comparing with doctors and nurses, the rural teachers' score of Decision Latitude (DL) was more and Psychological job Demand (PSD) was less. And the occupational stress degree of rural teachers was lower than doctors and nurses. According to the definition of Job demands-Control model, the proportion of high stress and low stress were 23.8% and 28.5%, respectively. And Worksite Social Support (WSS) was associated with occupational stress degree(P＜0.01).Above results indicated that the definition of occupational stress should include Decision Latitude (DL), Job Demand (JD) and Worksite Social Support (WSS) in rural teachers. The prevalence of occupational stress based on the three dimensions was 15.6%. Teaching years influenced the prevalence of occupational stress(P=0.03). The teachers with teaching years of less than 20 and more than 10 (involving 10) had the maximum occupational stress rate, which was 21.3%.2.2 The health status and its relationship with occupational stress among rural teachersThe results indicated that there was 63.0% rural teachers had psychological problems, which were anxiety and depression. Their psychological problems were associated with occupational stress obviously (OR=3.0, 95% CI:1.6～5.6) (P＜0.01). The psychological problem rate of occupational stress group (81.4%) was higher than non- occupational stress group (59.6%). In addition, assessing the quality of life of rural teachers, whatever genders their score of every SF-36 dimension was less than reference of Sichuan rural residents(P＜0.01). Their quality of life was worse than general rural residents, and it associated with occupational stress. Except Physical Functioning (PF), the scores of SF-36 dimensions were obviously different between occupational stress group and non- occupational stress group (P＜0.05). And the latter's quality of life was better.In conclusion, occupational stress based on C-JCQ was an indicator of health condition in rural teachers. It was necessary to use C-JCQ to screen high-risk people among more occupations, and prepared for further intervention of occupational stress.