Relationship between occupational stress and mental health among university teachers

Objective To explore the relationship between occupational stress and mental health among university teachers.Methods Totally 259 university teachers were investigated with Teacher Occupational Stress Scale and Symptom Checklist-90(SCL-90).Results There were significantly positive correlations bewteen occupational stress, social stress, stress from the university, individual stress and mental health among the teachers(r=0.376, 0.307, 0.248, 0.396; P<0.01 for all).Stepwise regression analysis showed that individual stress and occupational stress could better predict mental health with a regression equation of mental health=0.261 individual stress+0.176 occupational stress for the teachers.Conclusion Occupational stress is an important influence factor for mental health and the individual stress is the most important influence factor of mental health among university teachers.