Substance Abuse and Teacher Stress

Abstract

On-the-job stress was examined in relationship with the strength of need to use and the frequency of use of over-the-counter (OTC) and prescription (P) drugs and alcohol (A), across five teacher samples (N = 1788). The Total Strength and Total Frequency Scores of the Teacher Stress Inventory (TSI) were used to assess stress levels. It was determined that: 1) high stress frequencies were significantly related to the frequent use of OTC, P, and A substances, 2) high stress strengths were significantly related to perceptions of the strong need to use such substances; 3) 6 percent to 11 percent of the teachers reported a great-to-major need to use chemical substances to manage stress, while 3 percent to 11 percent reported actually making use of these on a near-daily or daily basis; 4) the Total Stress Frequency can be used to predict the frequency of substance use; and 5) both the Total Frequency and Total Strength measures can be used to predict the degree of need to use stress-buffering substances.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

McQuade

and Aikman

, Stress, Bantam Books, New York, 1979.

Snider

A. J.

and Adatto

I. J.

, Learning How to Live With Nervous Tension, Budlong Press Company, Chicago, 1975.

Gallup

, One of Three Families Have Alcohol Problems, The Connecticut Daily Campus, November 16, 1982, p. 7.

Help From Open Shelves, Parade Magazine, January 16, 1983, p. 6.

Ubell

, How You Can Help Turn Off Drug Abuse, Parade Magazine, March 4, 1984.

Aneshensel

C. S.

, An Application of Log-Linear Models: The Stress-Buffering Function of Alcohol Use, Journal of Drug Education, 13: 3, pp. 287–301, 1983.

Greenberg

S. F.

and Valletutti

P. J.

, Stress and the Helping Professions, Paul H. Brooks Publishers, Baltimore, 1980.

Fimian

M. J.

, A Comparison of Occupational Stress Correlates as Reported by Teachers of the Mentally Retarded and Non-mentally Retarded Handicapped Students, Education and Training of the Mentally Retarded, 18, pp. 62–67, 1983.

Finn

and O'Gorman

P. A.

, Teacher Training in Alcohol Education: Goals, Approaches and Content, Journal of Drug Education, 12: 3, pp. 255–269, 1982.

10.

Fimian

M. J.

, An Analysis of the Relationship Among Personal and Professional Variables and Perceived Stress of Mainstream and Special Education Teachers, doctoral dissertation, The University of Connecticut, 1982, Dissertation Abstracts International, 43, p. 2590A, 1983.

11.

Campbell

D. T.

and Stanley

J. C.

, Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Designs for Research, Rand McNally and Company, Chicago, 1963.

12.

Huck

S. W.

Cormier

W. H.

, and Bounds

W. G.

, Reading Statistics and Research, Harper and Row Publishers, New York, 1974.

13.

Zacherman

, Relationship between Stress, Job Involvement, and Teaching the Handicapped, unpublished doctoral dissertation, Department of Education, Ferhauf School of Humanities, Yeshiva University, 1983.

14.

Maslach

and Jackson

S. E.

, The Measurement of Experienced Burnout, Journal of Occupational Behavior, 2, pp. 99–113, 1981.

15.

Fimian

M. J.

, The Development of an Instrument to Measure Occupational Stress in Teachers of Exceptional Students, Techniques: Journal for Counseling and Remedial Education, in press, 1985.

16.

Fimian

M. J.

, The Development of an Instrument to Measure Occupational Stress in Teachers: The Teacher Stress Inventory, Journal of Occupational Psychology, 57, pp. 277–293, 1984.

17.

Nunnally

J. C.

, Psychometric Theory 2nd Ed., McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York, 1978.

18.

Morse

D. R.

and Furst

M. L.

, Stress for Success: A Holistic Approach to Stress and Its Management, VanNostrand-Reinhold Company, New York, 1979.

19.

Enlist In the War Against Alcohol, Holt

(ed.), Southern Publications Associates, Nashville, 1974.

20.

Morse

D. R.

, Clinical Endontology: A Comprehensive Guide to Diagnosis, Treatment, and Prevention, Charles C Thomas Publishers, Springfield, IL, 1974.

21.

Bensky

, Thinking Well: How to Keep Body and Mind Healthy, workshop presentation, Department of Health Promotion, St. Louis University Medical Center, May 19–20, 1980.

22.

Fimian

M. J.

, Psychosomatic Disorders and Occupational Stress in Teachers, paper submitted for publication, Department of Special Education, Appalachian State University, Boone, 1984.