Occupational stress and its risk factors among zookeepers in Malaysia

Ismail, Nur Izzaty Natashah (2018) Occupational stress and its risk factors among zookeepers in Malaysia. [Project Paper] (Submitted)

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Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Work-related stress is the important mental health elements in an organization but their presence always be neglected. Work in taking care of animals such as veterinarian, animal shelter workers and zookeepers always confronted with stressful and demanding situation on their task. The implication of occupational stress can affect their performance and engagement. Objective: The aim of this study is to determine the prevalence of occupational stress and its related risk factors among the zookeepers in Malaysia. Method: This a cross-sectional study among 40 zookeepers in two main zoos in Malaysia. One zoo is a privately-owned zoo (Zoo A) and the other is governmental zoo (Zoo B). This study was conducted by using a Malay-translated structured set of questionnaire consisting of sociodemographic information, job specific factors, psychosocial risk factors and stress symptoms from DASS-42. Occupational stress was measured based on occupational strain assessment from Job-Demand Control (JDC) from Job Content Questionnaires (JCQ). Result: Response rate was 54.54%. The prevalence of occupational stress among the zookeepers was 50% (N=20). Work risk to stress faced by the zookeepers able to identified. About 80% (N=32) and 60% (N=24) of the zookeepers did the cleaning and feeding task once to twice in daily respectively. In terms of risky working environment, most of them were responsible in taking greater risk animal and their perception on cage on the strength, accessibility, resistance and clear view of cage design were good. Next, the social support of the zoos individually relatively high. However, the job insecurity were slightly higher for Zoo A which showed about 76% (N=20). Next, only 30% (N= 12) of the total of zookeepers in both zoos developed the personal stress symptoms while 34.6% (N=9) and 21.4% (N=3) respectively for Zoo A and Zoo B. The association of personal stress symptoms with occupational stress showed significance association (X2 = 7.096, p-value= 0.014) and (X2 = 6.873, p-value= 0.027) respectively for Zoo A and Zoo B, which presented that those who in occupational stress may not developed the stress symptoms. Conclusion: From this study, it is clear that zookeepers were exposed to work risk such as cleaning and feeding frequency, cage safety, social support and job insecurity. The finding of this study found that half of the zookeeper population were stress over their work. Therefore, stress management program should be implemented on these risk factors to reduce the risk of occupational stress among the zookeepers. Keywords: Occupational strain, psychosocial risk factors, Zoo, Malaysia, JCQ

Item Type:	Project Paper
Faculty:	Faculty of Medicine and Health Science
Depositing User:	Ms Norafizah Radzuan
Date Deposited:	27 Nov 2024 03:08
Last Modified:	27 Nov 2024 03:08
URI:	http://psaspb.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/2268

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