Abstract:

The study investigated the influence of demographic factors, gender, qualification, experience, cultural background, school location and school size on stress symptoms manifested by teachers of public secondary schools in Cameroon. A research question was posed and one hypothesis formulated to guide the study. Using the Expost-facto design the study made use of a sample of 986 teachers from a total population of 5482 in Littoral and South West regions of Cameroon. Proportionate stratified random sampling technique was used to select 405 teachers from south West and 581 teachers from the Littoral Region. An eleven item questionnaire titled “Teachers’ Stress Symptoms Questionnaire” (TSSQ) was used to collect data. The response format for the instrument was Always (AL), Occasionally (OC), Rarely (RA), and Never (NE). The instrument which had English and French versions was validated and internal consistency reliability coefficients of 0.98 and 0.98 determined for the English and French versions respectively. Data were analyzed using mean and multiple regressions. Mean score was used to answer the research questions and multiple regression used to test the hypothesis at 0.05 significance. It was found that Cameroon teachers occasionally manifested pains and consistent tiredness and fatigue as symptoms of stress. They rarely manifested other symptoms such as depression, insomnia, muscular tensions, dizziness, loss of appetite, indigestion, stomach ache, high blood pressure and rapid heart beat. Manifestation of symptoms of stress significantly depended on the combined influence of gender, qualification, experience, cultural background, school location, and school size. Only size of school significantly influenced the manifestation of stress by the teachers. It was recommended that the Cameroonian Ministry of Secondary Education should organize seminars, workshops and other educational fora to orientate teachers about stress and the implication of stress to health sand productivity.