Community Medicine Abstracts - College of Medicine and Health ...

Project No. 177 (B-2001/2Missing)Fatigue among School Teachers in Al Ain CityStudent Authors: Ousha Hamad Hareb Hamad Al-Kuwaiti, Wafa Hamad NassibBalmur Al-Mansouri, Noura Sulaiman Ahmed S. Al-Houqani,Faculty Supervisors: Prof. A. Bener, Dr. A.G. Nicol, Dr. M. Newson-SmithAbstract:Objectives To investigate fatigue among UAE and non-UAE national male and femaleteachers in primary and secondary schools in Al Ain Governmental schools, UAE.Methods A cross-sectional descriptive survey among Arabic teachers in Al Ain. Thestudy was conducted in the period between 11 November to 28 October. Thepopulation was Arabic school teachers both male and female in Al Ain Government,primary and secondary schools. 500 self-administered questionnaires were distributedamong male and female teachers in Al Ain primary and secondary Governmentschools. The study employed a two-stage sampling technique.Results The total response rate was 67.7% as 338 questionnaires were received out of500 distributed. The school teachers participating in the study completed a total of338 questionnaires giving an overall total response of 67.8%. The mean age of maleteachers was 44 years and the mean age of female teachers was 34 years. UAEnational teachers made up 35.2% of the total study population while the non-UAEnational teachers made up 64.8%. 72% of the teachers didn't have any medicalcondition, while the rest had medical conditions like diabetes mellitus, hypertensionand anaemia. Fatigue was more common among female teachers (77.3%) with a pvalue of 0.0001, more common in UAE national teachers (79.8%) with a p value of0.001, more common among secondary school teachers (73.3%) and more amongteachers with no children (79.2%). Fatigue had an impact on social and personal lifewith 52% being unable to have enough time with family or friends, 45.3% havinghome/work conflicts and 84% being most of the time occupied with work.Conclusions The prevalence of fatigue is statistically significant among the femaleteachers especially the non-married, UAE national secondary school teachers whencompared with other teachers. This might be due to the rapid social changes the UAEcommunity is witnessing, unrealistic goals, poor lifestyle (e.g. the physical inactivity,poor sleep and diet) and undiagnosed medical conditions e.g. anaemia or psychiatricconditions e.g. depression or anxiety.