OCCUPATIONAL STRESSORS, COPING STRATEGIES AND COUNSELLING NEEDS OF PRISON OFFICERS IN NIGERIA
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Date
2018
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University of Ilorin
Abstract
The prison setting is often dangerous and unpredictable. The nature of prison officers’ job exposes them to different stressors necessitating counselling and coping strategies. This study therefore, investigated occupational stressors, coping strategies and counselling needs of prison officers in Nigeria. The objectives of the study were to investigate: (i) occupational stressors (ii) coping strategies (iii) counselling needs of prison officers; and (iv)influence of gender, marital status, working experience and educational qualification on occupational stressors, coping strategies and counselling needs of prison officers in Nigeria.
The research design adopted for this study was descriptive survey. The population of the study consisted of 23,991 prison officers in Nigeria. The target population (6350) consisted of prison officers drawn from six states, a state from each geo-political zone. Purposive and proportional sampling techniques were adopted in selecting a total sample of 1,468 prison officers across the six geo-political zones in Nigeria. Occupational Stressors, Coping Strategies and Counselling Needs Questionnaire was adopted and used for the study. The instrument was content validated by five experts in the Department of Counsellor Education, University of Ilorin, Ilorin. To establish the reliability, the instrument was subjected to a test re-test reliability technique and a co-efficient of 0.87 was obtained using Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation formula. Descriptive (percentages) and inferential ( t-test, and Analysis of Variance ) statistical measures were used to analyze the data collected for the study.
The findings of the study were that:
(i) Poor reward for hard work (X=3.40), unimproved salary (X=3.28), poor promotion opportunities (X=3.25) were major occupational stressors to prison officers in Nigeria
(ii) Major coping strategies adopted by respondents include; effective planning(X=2.75), praying to God on every issue (X=2.71) and clarifying work schedule(X=2.69)
(iii) The prison officers need counslling mostly in areas of periodic training(X=3.15); improved competency(X=3.15) and feeling happy(X=3.14)
(iv) Gender (t=7.21;p<0.05) marital status (f(2,146)=20.75;p<0.05) and working experience (f(2,1465)=14.59;p<0.05) had significant differences on occupational stressors of respondents, in favour of male respondents; divorce/separated and those with 11-21 years of working experience
(v) Marital status (f(2,1465)=16.46;p<0.05); working experience (f(2,1465)=3.12;p<0.05) and educational qualification (f(3,1464)=5.86;p<0.05) had significant differences on the coping strategies of respondents in favour of married officers; those with 11-21 years working experience and officers with SSCE
(vi) Marital status (f(2,1465)=8.59;p<0.05); working experience (f(2,1465)=7.13;p<0.05) and educational qualification (f(3,1464)=14.10;p<0.05) had significant differences on the counselling needs of respondents. Married officers; those with 11-21 years working experience and officers with SSCE were responsible for the significant differences.
The study concluded that the Nigerian prison officers are faced with numerous stressors, employed various coping strategies and had varying counselling needs. The implication of this is that prison officers need counselling to cope with their work stress. The study therefore recommended that counselling services be provided in all prisons in Nigeria and the prison authorities should make the working environment friendly for prison officers by providing basic occupational facilities.
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OCCUPATIONAL STRESSORS, COPING STRATEGIES, COUNSELLING NEEDS, PRISON OFFICERS, NIGERIA