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European Journal of Educational Studies 3(1), 2011ISSN 1946-6331© 2011 Ozean PublicationPSYCHOLOGICAL DISTRESS AMONG TRAINEE TEACHERS IN NIGERIA:ASSOCIATION WITH RELIGIOUS PRACTICECORNELIUS ANI*, JOSEPH KINANEE** and BOLANLE OLA**** Academic Unit of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine,St Mary's Campus, Norfolk Place, London** Rivers State University of Education, Rumuolumeni, Port Harcourt, Nigeria*** Department of Behavioural Medicine, Lagos State University College of Medicine, Lagos, Nigeria.E-mail address for correspondence: c.ani@imperial.ac.uk__________________________________________________________________________________________Abstract: There is no data on the mental health of trainee teachers in Africa. We present the first data on themental health of this student group and associations with socio-demographic factors, family function andreligious practice in Nigeria.We conducted a cross-sectional questionnaire survey of 220 randomly selectedtrainee-teachers in second, third and fourth years of training at Rivers State College of Education PortHarcourt, Nigeria. The students’ mental health was assessed with the 12-item General Health Questionnaire(GHQ-12), which has good reliability in Nigeria. The response rate was 73%.Majority of the respondents (56%)were female and the sample ranged in age from 18-37 years [Mean 24.3(SD 2.9) years]. Using a cut-off of 2and above for the GHQ-12, 36% of the students were classified as experiencing psychological distress. Multipleregression identified significant predictors of GHQ scores as frequency of attending religious activities (higherattendance associated with lower GHQ scores) and year-of-study (students in Year 3 scored highest comparedwith Years 2 and 4).To our knowledge, this is the first study to explore the mental health of trainee-teachers inAfrica. The increased psychological distress among students in Year 3 is likely to be due to increased work loadat this stage of their training. It is therefore important to consider targeting available pastoral support forstudents at this stage. Religious practice could provide helpful positive coping strategy among students in thiscohort.__________________________________________________________________________________________INTRODUCTIONThe notion of stress related growth (Tassie & Whelan, 2007) suggests that students can learn and grow fromstressful events. However, excessive stress can also be damaging to students’ physical and mental health.Students’ stress can arise from isolation from previous social support networks, frequent summativeassessments, uncertainty and frustration with novel academic challenges, unrealistic expectations from parentsand teachers and examination failure (Pabiton 2007). Some students may be vulnerable on account of mentalhealth problems predating their entry into a college or university (Yates et al. 2008). In some cases such as inmany developing countries, the stressors may be secondary to wider socio-economic and political disadvantagessuch as poverty, wars, and natural disasters, which are not directly related to academic work (Ovunga et al.,2006). Also, the stressors may be related to the students’ particular course of study. This paper focuses onstudents training to become teachers.163

Although teaching is recognised as one of the most stressful professions (Johnson et al 2005), psychologicaldistress among trainee-teachers is less well recognised. This is probably because the stress of teacher training isseen by some as a normative part of becoming aqualified teacher (Murray-Harvey et al 2000). However, this assumption is increasingly being challenged. Forexample, a recent study in England (Chaplain 2008) found high levels of stress among 38% of trainee teachers.Despite the study by Chaplain (2008), there remains a relative lack of research interest in the mental health oftrainee teachers worldwide and especially in developing countries. This limited research interest is surprisinggiven the large number of studies showing increased psychological distress among qualified teachers in severalparts of the world. Teaching has been shown to be among the top six most stressful professions (Johnson et al2005). Also an Australian study of 574 secondary school teachers found twice as much levels of stresscompared with the general population (Punch and Tuettmann 1990).Equally important is the finding that stress among teachers is associated with a wide range of adverse outcomesincluding physical health complaints, mental disorders, relationship difficulties and reduced productivity (Punchand Tuettmann 1990). Even more concerning is the potentially long term negative impact on the children taughtby stressed teachers (Delp 1963). Thus understanding the mental health of trainee teachers is not only importantfor the trainees but it has additional important implications for the well-being of the pupils they will go on toteach as teachers.We found no studies from Africa on the mental health of trainee teachers. This is reflective of the generalpaucity of studies on the mental health of students in higher education in Africa.The few existing studies focus largely on the mental health of African medical students whoare often considered to be most at risk of stress (Omigbodun et al 2006). However, our experience of workingwith medical students and trainee teachers suggest that latter group could be at a greater disadvantage and athigher risk of psychological distress. Trainee teachers in Africa have a lower job prospect on graduation thanmedical students. The teaching profession in parts of Africa like Nigeria is also relatively undervalued; henceteachers are frequently involved in industrial disputes and strike actions (Alabi, 1988; Ehusani, 2002; Agwom &Turaki, 2009). However, the Nigerian federal and some state governments are making concerted efforts toimprove the condition of teachers.In addition to ascertaining the level of mental distress among trainee teachers, it is equally important tounderstand the factors that contribute to resilience against mental distress. Religion is one of the social variablesincreasingly recognised as being potentially beneficial to mental health. Although the role of religion iscontroversial, a meta-analysis has shown that more studies show positive association between religion andmental health than not (Koenig et al 2001). In highly religious communities like Nigeria where access to mentalhealth services is also limited, religion has the potential of providing effective coping strategies for a largeproportion of the population.Our first objective in this paper is to determine the level of psychological distress among trainee teachers inSouth-Southern part of Nigeria. To our knowledge, this is the first study to examine the mental health of traineeteachers in Africa. The second objective is to explore association between mental health and a range ofexplanatory variables including religion.METHODSSubjectsSubjects were students from faculties of Education, Arts, and Science and in 2 nd , 3 rd or 4 th years of study atRivers State College of Education (now University) Port Harcourt Nigeria. One hundred students were164

andomly selected from each of the three faculties making a total of 300 respondents. After the nature of thestudy was explained, 220 students consented to participate (response rate 73%). Prior to administering thequestionnaires, ethical conditions for participating (including privacy, voluntary participation, anonymity,confidentiality, and protection from both psychological and physical harm) were verbally explained to therespondents. They were also free to withdraw from the study at any point or stage. These 220 students thencompleted the study questionnaires in private and data collection took place in June and July 2009. Students intheir first year of study were excluded to avoid confounding by transient transitional difficulties.Ethical considerationThe study was approved by the Rivers State College of Education Research and Ethics Committee and met therequirements of the Helsinki Declaration on the use of human participants in research.QuestionnaireParticipant’s mental health was assessed with the 12 – item version of the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12). The GHQ is a self completed general measure of psychological distress in community samples (Goldbergand Williams 1988). The GHQ has been adapted, validated and used extensively in Nigeria (Gureje andObikoya 1990). The questionnaire’s reliability, brevity and ease of completion make it attractive for use inresource challengedenvironments like Nigeria. The standard GHQ scoring scheme of 0-0-1-1 was adopted toproduce total scores that range from 0-12. A cut-off score of 2 and above was used to identify subjects withpsychological distress. This cut-off was adopted to allow comparison with other studies in Nigeria that used theGHQ and similar cut-off (Omigbodun et al 2006).Additional information was sought on family function using the 12-item General Function Scale of the FamilyAssessment Device (FAD) (Epstein et al 1983). The even numbered questions on FAD were reverse coded sothat higher scores indicate worse family function. The internal consistency of the FAD was acceptable(Cronbach’s α = 0.72).Religion was assessed with two questions – “frequency of attending religious activities per week” and“frequency of saying prayers per day”. These two questions were chosen to test the hypothesis suggested by(Koenig et al 2001) that the beneficial effect of religion to mental health arises from the social support andguidance engendered by participation in religious activities rather than from spirituality (measured in this studyas frequency of prayers).Demographic information was obtained and socio-economic status was assessed by eliciting information onownership of possessions such as house, car, colour television, and mobile phone.ANALYSISThe data was analysed with SPSS Version 18. Continuous data was described with Means (and StandardDeviations) while categorical data was presented as Numbers and Percentages. Cross group comparisons ofGHQ scores were conducted with t-tests and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) as appropriate. Bivariatecorrelations were calculated between GHQ scores and continuous socio-demographic and other predictorvariables. Variables with statistically significant associations with GHQ score were entered into a multipleregression model to identify independent significant predictor variables of GHQ.165

RESULTSSubjects’ characteristics (Table 1)Fifty-six percent of the trainee-teachers were females and 44% were males, which reflected the genderproportion in the institution and are consistent with the demographics of trainee teachers in another NigerianCollege (Abdullahi 2010) and qualified teachers registered with the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria(National Bureau of Statistics 2009). The trainees’ ages were normally distributed and ranged from 18 years to37 years (M = 24.3, SD =2.9). Female trainees were significantly younger than males trainees (CI = -1.8, to0.08, p = 0,03). There were no significant age differences across faculties or years of study.Eleven percent of the trainees were married but the vast majority (88%) were single. The respondents werereasonably evenly distributed across the three Faculties (Education = 38%, Arts = 33%, and Science 29%).However, most of the trainees (50%) were in their second year of study, 36% were in third year and 14% werein fourth year.Ownership of high value properties such as house and car was limited (16% and 11% respectively) but morethan half owned a colour television and nearly all the trainees had a mobile phone (96%). The mean frequencyof attending religious activities per week and saying prayers per day were 2.5 (SD = 1.3) and 2.2 (SD 1.2)respectively. There were no significant differences in both variables across gender, faculty or year of study.Psychological distress (GHQ)A cut-off of ≥ 2 on the GHQ-12 identified 36% of the trainees as psychologically distressed. A one-waybetween-groups ANOVA conducted to explore the impact of year-of-study (second, third and fourth yeartrainees) on GHQ-12 was statistically significant: F(2, 217) = 4.3, p = 0.02. Post-hoc comparisons using theTukey HSD test indicated that the mean GHQ score for Second Year Trainees (M = 1.0, SD = 1.3) wassignificantly different from Third Year Trainees (M = 1.6, SD = 1.6). Fourth Year Trainees’ GHQ scores (M =1.6, SD = 1.5) did not differ significantly from either Second or Third Year Trainees. Further one-way ANOVAanalyses found no significant differences in GHQ scores across marital status and faculty. T-tests also found nosignificant differences in GHQ scores across gender, or ownership of house, car, colour TV or mobile phones.Associations between GHQ scores and age, FAD, frequency of attending religious activities and frequency ofprayers were investigated by calculating Pearson correlation coefficients (Table 2). Only frequency of attendingreligious activities correlated significantly with GHQ with more frequent attendance associated with lower GHQscores.A standard simultaneous multiple regression was used to test the ability of Year-of-study and frequency ofattending religious activities to predict GHQ scores controlling for age and gender. Both variables significantlyand independently predicted GHQ but the model explained only 7.5% of the variance in GHQ F(4, 181) = 3.7, p= 0.007 (Table 3).DISCUSSIONTo our knowledge, this is the first study of the mental health of trainee teachers in Africa. The study showed thatone in every three (35%) of the trainee teachers were psychologically distressed. Trainees in their third year ofstudy were most psychologically distressed and increased frequency of attending religious activities wasassociated with less psychological distress.166

However, in order to explore the comparison with other Nigerian students in greater detail, the mean GHQ-12scores of the trainee teachers in this study were compared with GHQ-12 scores by a group of Nigerianphysiotherapy and nursing students and another group of Nigerian medical and dental students (Omigbodun et al2006). This comparison is considered more appropriate as both studies were on students in higher education andused similar versions of the GHQ. The comparison showed that the mean GHQ score for the trainee teachers (M= 1.29, SD 1.50) was not statistically significantly different compared with scores by physiotherapy and nursingstudents in the study by Omigbodun et al (2006) (M = 1.22, SD 1.87; t(373) = 0.40, p = 0.68) . However, thetrainee-teachers scored significantly lower (M = 1.29, SD 1.50) on the GHQ than medical and dental students inthe same study (M = 1.66, SD 2.22; t(1181) = 2.35, p = 0.02). This finding is consistent with the suggestion thatmedical students are at higher risk of psychological distress compared with other student groups (Omigbodun etal 2006). Some of the reasons suggested for this increased risk include higher academic pressure and longerduration of medical training, which engenders higher financial burden (Omigbodun et al 2006).The finding that trainee-teachers in their second year of study had the lowest GHQ scores may be explained bythe relative less academic pressure in this year group compared with students in their third and fourth years ofstudy. The finding suggests that it may be more helpful to focus resources for screening for psychologicaldistress and provision of pastoral support to students in the more academically challenging year groups.This study adds more data to the increasing evidence for the potential positive role of religious practice onmental health (Koenig et al 2001, Koenig 2009). The trainee-teachers involved in more frequent religiousactivities were less psychologically distressed. This finding is also consistent with a previous study of Nigerianhigher education students which showed that being a “Pentecostal Christian” predicted less psychologicaldistress (Omigbodun et al 2006). Ko and colleagues also found similar use of positive religious coping strategiesamong medical and law students in Singapore (Ko et al 1999).The study also provides evidence to support the hypothesis that the benefit of religion to mental health derivesfrom the social support and guidance engendered by participation in religious activities rather than spirituality(Koenig et al 2001). In this study, spirituality, which was measured as frequency of saying prayers was notsignificantly associated with GHQ scores whereas participation in religious activities predicted GHQ scores. Itis thought that the benefits of religious practice on mental health is mediated by intermediate variables such aspeer social support, opportunity for more positive and realistic appraisal of negative events, social guidance andcounsel, promotion of hope, and opportunity to give or serve (Koenig et al 2001, Koenig 2009). Althoughreligion can be associated with adverse events, the findings from this and other studies suggest that healthynormative religious practices could be a helpful positive coping strategy. This could be particularly relevant incommunities with limited mental health services.While this study has pioneered empirical investigation of trainee-teachers’ mental health in Africa, the findingsshould be interpreted in the light of some limitations. First, the study examined a limited range of explanatoryvariables; hence the two identified predictors accounted for only 7.5% of the variance in GHQ. There is need formore studies to identify more predictors, particularly putative stressors that may be modifiable withintervention. The use of GHQ, which is a self report screening instrument, is a limitation. Future studies shouldaim to identify psychopathology using a two stage process involving clinical interviews with students whoscreen positive to GHQ. Given that the sample was drawn from one Institution in one area of Nigeria,generalisation of the findings to other parts of the country or Africa should be done with caution.In conclusion, the present study shows that psychological distress among trainee-teachers in this location is mostsevere among students in their third year of study, which we suspect was due to increased work load at this stageof their training. Given the scarcity of resources for pastoral support in Nigerian Universities, it is important toconsider targeting available pastoral support for students at this stage. Religious practice provides a potentiallyhelpful positive coping strategy in this cohort of students.167

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTWe would like to thank the students who agreed to participate in the study.REFERENCESAbdullahi, O. E. (2010). Reducing gender inequality in classroom teaching and learning for capacity building offemale participation in the nation building. Gender and Behaviour. Ife: Centre for PsychologicalStudies.Agwom, S. I. and Turaki, J. P. (2009). The teacher and teaching as a profession: Restoration strategies forachieving the Millenium Development Goals. The Voice of Teachers, 1(2), 106-112.Alabi, T. (1988). The teaching profession: An administrative challenge of the 6-3-3-4. In G. O. Akpa and S. U.Udoh (Eds.). Towards implementation of the 6-3-3-4 system of education in Nigeria. Jos: TechsourceElectronics Press.Chaplain RP (2008) Stress and psychological distress among trainee secondary teachers in England. EducationalPsychology, 28, 195-209Delp H (1963). Mental Health of Teachers: Still A Problem? Journal of Teacher Education 14: 142-149Ehusani, G. (2002). The Plight of Education and the Status of Teachers in Nigeria: Issues and Challenges. Paperpresented at the Forum on Cost and Financing of Education in Nigeria organized by the EducationSector Analysis, Federal Ministry of Education at Sheraton Hotels, Abuja, September 18-19.Epstein, N., Baldwin, L. and Bishop, D. (1983) The McMaster Family Assessment Device. Journal of Maritaland Family Therapy, 9, 171-180Goldberg D, Williams P (1988) A user guide to the GHQ. NFER Nelson,WindsorGureje O and Obikoya B (1990) The GHQ as a screening tool in primary care setting. Social Psychology andPsychiatric Epidemiology, 25(5) 276-80Koenig HG, McCullough ME, Larson DB (2001). Handbook of Religion and Health. New York, NY: OxfordUniversity PressKoenig HG (2009) Research on Religion, Spirituality, and Mental Health: A Review. Canadian Journal ofPsychiatry, 54,283–291Ko SM, Kua EH, Fones CS (1999) Stress and the undergraduates. Singapore Medical Journal, 40, 627-630168

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TABLESTable 1. Subjects characteristicsCharacteristicsN (%) or Mean (SD)GenderMaleFemale98 (44.5)122 (55.5)Age (Mean/SD)in years 24.3 (2.9)Marital statusMarriedSingleDivorced25 (11.4)193 (87.7)2 (0.9)FacultyEducationArtsScience84 (38.2)72 (32.7)64 (29.1)Year of studySecond yearThird yearFourth year110 (50.0)80 (36.4)30 (13.6)House ownershipYesNo36 (16.4)184 (83.6)Car ownershipYesNo24 (10.9)196 (89.1)Mobile phone ownershipYesNo210 (95.5)10 (4.5)170

Colour TV ownershipYesNo101 (45.9)119 (54.1)Frequency of attending religious activities per week (Mean/SD) 2.5 (1.3)Frequency of saying prayers per day (Mean/SD) 2.2 (1.2)Family Assessment Device 2.7 (0.6)Psychological distressGHQ – Mean (SD)GHQ score ≥ 2GHQ score < 21.29 (1.50)78 (35.5)142 (64.5)Table 2. Correlations between GHQ and age, family function, measures of religionVariable 1 2 3 4 51. GHQ - 0.12 -0.07 -0.21** -0.132. Age - -0.03 -0.06 0.0013. FAD - -0.03 -0.064. Frequency of attending religious activities - 0.23**5. Frequency of saying prayers -** p < 0.01171

Table 3. Regression coefficients – dependent variable = GHQ-12ModelUnstandardized CoefficientsStandardizedCoefficientsB Std. Error Beta1 (Constant) .823 .921 .893 .373Age .033 .037 .066 .888 .376Gender -.284 .216 -.096 -1.315 .190Year in school .369 .157 .172 2.344 .020Frequency of attendingreligious activitiestSig.-.189 .082 -.166 -2.304 .022172