Occupational Stress, Self-esteem and Mental Health among Public Sector School Teachers of Pune: A Correlational Study

The objective of this study was to check whether there is a correlation between occupational stress, mental health, and self-esteem among teachers of public sector schools. The Occupational Stress Index developed by Srivastava and Singh, the Mental Health Inventory given by Jagdish and Srivastava, and the Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale are used to calculate occupational stress, mental health, and self-esteem respectively. A total number of 77 participants including 50 male and 27 female teachers from different schools operated by Pune Municipal Corporation and Pune Zilla Parishad were included in this study. Later on, the descriptive statistics of the data were obtained and Pearson product-moment correlation was performed using SPSS software. The results of the tests showed that both male and female teachers experience moderate levels of occupational stress. Furthermore, Pearson correlation tests showed that there is a significant negative correlation between occupational stress and self-esteem among teachers. Similarly, a negative correlation was seen between age and occupational stress. To conclude, although a moderate level of stress is experienced, dealing with stress effectively becomes an important task in front of teachers. Hence, stress management workshops, efficient distribution of responsibilities, etc. measures are important to be taken to reduce occupational stress among teachers.