Psychosocial risk assessment among teachers in selected primary school in Ampang, Selangor

Psychosocial risk assessment is becoming more important for research and health and safety at work because of changes in the law that require employers to include psychosocial work factors in general risk assessment. Teachers spend one-third of their day on work-related duties and the amount of that time contributes significantly to the situation outside of working hours. Numerous problems are raised regarding the factors contributing to teachers' stress and mental health status. Regarding the source of stress, is it the result of the job or does it come from another source. Therefore, the objective of this study is to determine the psychosocial status and its risk factors among teachers in primary school. This study was conducted in a selected school in Ampang, Selangor. There were 65 of primary school’s teachers involved in this study. They met certain criteria, such as having a minimum of six months of teaching experience and not being diagnosed with any sort of psychiatric disease. There were three parts of the questionnaires including the demographic characteristics, Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS21), and Environment & Occupation Likelihood Scale on Workers Mental Health Status (LEOs). The study found that majority of respondents were female teachers who were married, aged 40 or older, had worked for more than 12 years, and held a bachelor's degree. The results of this study showed that the percentage of psychological symptoms among primary school teacher in selected school in Ampang were at normal level and psychosocial status of the teachers were in low risk. There were very low percentage of teachers who experience severe to extremely severe phycological symptoms which including depression, anxiety and stress. Therefore, majority of teachers in this study had good mental health status which required low priority for mental health action. However, there was no significant association between depression levels with occupation risk factor. Future research should focus on risk factors for psychosocial status and other mental illnesses to all Malaysian teachers, since it is critical for teachers to have good mental health in order to improve the quality of the teaching process and students' educational outcomes.