Impact of occupational health coaching on irrational career beliefs and workplace deviant behaviors among school employees: Implications for Educational administrative policy.

BACKGROUND: Workplace-disruptive behavior is an important public and organizational health issue that calls for public discourse. The high rates in Nigeria and its associated career illogical assumptions among teachers brought about this study to investigate the impact of rational emotive occupational health coaching (REOHC) on irrational career beliefs and workplace deviant behaviors in a sample of Nigerian primary school teachers. METHODS: A sample of 128 primary school teachers in Nigeria was recruited as participants. They were assigned to REOHC and control groups. Work deviance behavior scale and teacher irrational belief scale were used to assess the participants at 3 points. A pretest-post-test and follow-up design was used in this study. RESULTS: The findings indicated that the REOHC program significantly reduced work-deviant behaviors and irrational career beliefs among primary school teachers. The outcome also demonstrates the connection between groups and gender. CONCLUSION: This study concluded that primary school teachers' work-related deviant behaviors and illogical beliefs were reduced as a result of the REOHC treatment. Therefore, occupational therapists should help teachers with deviant behaviors and irrational beliefs to change using rational emotive behavioral techniques.

Efficacy of rational emotive behavior therapy for the improvement of knowledge and risk perception of hypertension among university lecturers in South East Nigeria: REBT for university lecturers' hypertension improvement.

BACKGROUND: This study determined the effectiveness of a rational emotive behavioral therapy (REBT) intervention on knowledge of risks of hypertension among university lecturers in South-east geopolitical zone of Nigeria. METHODS: The study used a group randomized controlled trial design to group the participants into treatment group and a waiting-list control group and the hypertension knowledge questionnaire and the Perceived Risks of Hypertension Questionnaire to collect a pretest, posttest, and follow-up data of this study. The sample of the study was 84 university lecturers in public universities in Southeast Nigeria (University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Enugu State, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Anambra State) who satisfies the requirements to participate in the study. The study lasted for 10 weeks. The data collected for the study were analyzed using repeated measures ANOVA and t test statistics. RESULTS: The findings of this study were that REBT health educational intervention effectively increased the education foundation and business education lecturers' knowledge and perceived risk of hypertension compared to participants in waitlist group. Lastly, the outcomes of the follow-up measures indicate that the increased knowledge and perceived risks of hypertension acquired during the training program was sustained by the treatment group one month after the end of program. CONCLUSION: The REBT health educational intervention program could be utilized to increase knowledge and perceived risks of hypertension among university lecturers in public universities in Southeast Nigeria.

Supporting business educators and students against COVID-19 trauma using trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy.

BACKGROUND: The outbreak of COVID-19 manifests in peoples' mental health and psychological dispositions and may also result to acute distress, depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) on victims. The objective of this study was to support business educators' and students' mental health against coronavirus trauma using trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy (TF-CBT). METHODS: The participants (n = 74 - educators and students) who indicated PTSD symptoms based on the self-reporting questionnaire they filled, were randomly assigned to treatment and waitlist control groups. The TF-CBT manual was used for the intervention. The intervention was a 14-week treatment with 2 weeks follow-up meeting. Using repeated measures of Analysis of Variance, we determined the level of improvement of each participant in the treatment group against Coronavirus trauma at the end of the intervention. RESULTS: The study established that gender has no significant difference in determining the effects of Coronavirus trauma on participants. Through intervention, the PTSDs and depression arising from Coronavirus event were significantly reduced in the treatment group. Again, there was a significant improvement in the participants' general mental health at the end of the intervention. Hence, we established the implication for research and practice in line with the outcome of the study. The study advocates that TF-CBT should be employed by educational institutions in Nigeria to cushion the traumatic effects of coronavirus and future disasters on both workers and students. CONCLUSION: We conclude that mental health problems remain a serious challenge among business educators and students in this COVID-19 pandemic era. The study established that low educational qualifications, PTSD symptoms and negative coping strategies are the factors aggravating the general low mental health of the study participants. Finally, we advocate that the educational institutions in Nigeria should adopt TF-CBT interventions to support staff and students' mental health against adverse effects of COVID-19.