Quantitative and Qualitative Dimensions of Stress - A Snapshot Approach

The concept of occupational stress has gained popularity during last five decades and a number of quantitative measures have been designed by researchers to assess different dimensions of stress. Many studies have particularly focused on manifestation of stress e.g. depression, anxiety, burnout, somatic illness etc. but still there exists a debate regarding the similarities and differences among various stress dimensions. This study focused on measuring somatic stress, depression & burnout and tried to identify the relationships between these dimensions of stress using few stress instruments adapted to the sample of 274 teachers from 3 different types of universities of Pakistan. In addition, this study also aimed to delineate these dimensions of stress through qualitative approach i.e. interviews. It aimed to clarify the different facets of stress from the available literature and also addressed the stress measurement problems particularly for the new entrants in this field. Results revealed significant positive relationships between emotional exhaustion & depersonalization. Emotional exhaustion also showed significant impact on depression and somatic stress. Moreover, this study highlighted some of the challenges pertaining to data collection (through questionnaires and interviews) and data analysis and proposed how to overcome these challenges in the most suitable manner.