Occupational stress in university teachers exposed to biological risks

Abstract

Work stress has been a determining factor in the appearance of illnesses in university teachers, which has generated absenteeism, errors and accidents in work environments. The objective of this research was to characterize work stress in university teaching staff in the health area, with biological risk. A descriptive, cross-sectional, field and prospective research was carried out, with a non-experimental design, in 53 teachers of the Faculty of Health Sciences, of the Technical University of Manabí, Ecuador, from June 2018 to June 2021, applying the ILO-WHO Occupational Stress Instrument and the estimation of the numerical index of biological risk for academic environments. Women (73.6%), older than fifty years (52.8%) with low level stress prevailed. All the stress dimensions in general showed low levels (2.25 ± 1.05), however, when discriminating according to the academic position, the few cases with high levels were the Titular Assistants, specifically in the dimensions: technology, organizational climate and group support, biological risk occurs in 7.5% of cases and 64.2% similar to the general population. It was determined that there are teachers with stress levels that could affect their psycho-biological homeostasis, for which their intervention is recommended, regardless of their academic rank or work dedication.