Perceived Stress Among Private School Teachers in Chengalpattu District, Tamil Nadu, India: A Cross-Sectional Study

Background Teachers are the cornerstone of any civilized society, preserving knowledge, wisdom, and ideals. Along with job-related stress, teachers face a variety of challenging circumstances in the classroom. This includes thoughts concerning a lack of professional appreciation, challenges maintaining classroom discipline, a lack of peer support, and extra duties like surveys and government mandates. All of these characteristics may have an effect on their mental health. Thus the objective of the study is to analyze the perceived stress among private school teachers in Chengalpattu district and associate the findings with various demographic and occupational parameters. Methodology A cross-sectional study was conducted among 300 private school teachers in Chengalpattu District, Tamil Nadu from June to August 2024. The principal investigator collected the data by using a semi-structured questionnaire, which consists of three parts, that is, sociodemographic variables, questions about their profession and health, and stress assessed by using the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10). The data collected was entered in Microsoft Excel (Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, Washington, USA) and analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 27.0 (Released 2019; IBM Corp., Armonk, New York, USA) Results The current study included 300 teachers from private schools. Majority of teachers (n=152, 50.7%) were over the age of forty. Of the participants, 232 (77.3%) were female, and 122 (40.7%) reported having trouble sleeping. Comorbidities were present in nearly 79.7% (239/300) of teachers. In this study, during the last month preceding the survey, 85% (255/300) of the teachers reported feeling anxious and stressed ("fairly" or "very often") and 72% (217/300) felt they were not able to control significant things in their lives. According to the PSS-10, the majority of individuals (n=223, 74.3%) experienced high levels of stress, followed by low stress (n=45, 15%) and moderate stress (n=32, 10.7%). The mean PSS score in this study was 26.50±9.92. Inferential statistics revealed that teachers who were aged more than 40, those with a monthly salary of less than or equal to Rs.40000, smokers, married, teachers with an average of more than 40 students per class, teaching experience of more than 20 years, those who had disturbed sleep, and those with comorbidities experienced high stress according to the PSS-10. Gender, alcohol consumption habits, the duration of schoolwork accomplished at home per day, and workplace/home conflict all had no significant association with perceived stress. Conclusion In addition to providing programs that promote or educate teachers about occupational risks, administrators in education and legislators should be mindful of the physical and psychological conditions of teachers and should also offer a wide range of preventive strategies that protect teachers' mental health and improve their social functioning.