Perceived work-related stress and its associated factors among public secondary school teachers in Gondar city: a cross-sectional study from Ethiopia

OBJECTIVE: We conducted a cross-sectional study to assess perceived work-related stress and associated factors among public secondary school teachers in Gondar city, northwest Ethiopia. A self-completed questionnaire was used for data collection. Data was entered into Epi-info version 7.1 and analyzed by SPSS version 20 software. The associations between dependent and independent variables were assessed using a multivariate binary logistic regression analysis based on the adjusted odds ratio (AOR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) and p values < 0.05. RESULTS: The response rate was 96.4%. The overall prevalence of perceived work-related stress was 58.2%. Teaching experience < 5 years (AOR 2.03, 95% CI (1.10, 3.73), education level BSC/BED (AOR 1.66, 95% CI (1.07, 3.17), high job demand (AOR 1.61, 95% CI (1.29, 3.74), and poor relationships (AOR 1.88, 95% CI (1.07, 3.31) were significantly associated with work-related stress. In conclusion, the findings showed a high proportion of stress among participants. Therefore, we suggested a need to take action to balance job demand and teaching experience, offering the opportunity to upgrade their educational level and establish good relationships to ease the burden of stress factors related to work.