Stress and Coping Strategies Among Supporting Staff at the Central Administration in the University of Ghana

Abstract

The on-going structural changes in workplaces coupled with the fast pace of modern technology, population surge and competition among some public and private universities have brought about a lot of stress among staff in the various tertiary institution, especially in developing countries. Most studies have focused on stress among the teaching staff with little attention on the supporting staff. This study therefore investigated stress and coping strategies among supporting staff at the central administration in the University of Ghana. Method: A cross-sectional design was employed using a quantitative method. A sample size of 214 supporting staff was used. A structured questionnaire was self-administered mostly to gather the data. This was measured on a five-point likert scale. Categorical data was expressed using frequency percentages and Chi-square was used to determine the association between variables. Continuous data was expressed as means standard deviation and t-test was done to compare differences in means. Results: The results showed that, 173(80.8%) of the supporting staff perceived stress moderately. The first three sources of stress ranked highest included dealing with several pressing problems at once; finding that reward are not based on performance and having inadequate personnel or equipment to respond in an emergency. The supporting staff best coping strategies for stress were to increase effort to make things work, praying or finding faith in God or ones religion and to make a plan of action and follow it. Conclusion: The findings of this study revealed that 80.8% of the supporting staff perceived stress moderately and this is associated with their educational level. They face a wide range of sources of stress and they find coping strategies to overcome their issue concerning stress though they use only 13 out of the 21-item coping strategies on the mean of 2.71.