Employee health service for teaching and nonteaching staff: a needs assessment

This paper reports the results of a needs assessment conducted for an Employee Health Service in a metropolitan school district. Survey questionnaires were distributed to the entire district staff with a return rate of 49% (n = 2,268). In order to identify the subgroups of employees who may be at greatest health risk, data were analyzed utilizing an Automatic Interaction Detection Analysis technique. As a means of determining whether particular subgroups perceive stress differentially, multivariate analyses of variance were also performed. Results indicate that "degree of stress" is the health risk variable which can best differentiate employees on the basis of health risk predictors. In general, for teachers, coping ability differentiates those who have high versus low stress, whereas for nonteachers, satisfaction with social support shows the strongest relationship to stress. Furthermore, classification of individuals by job category results in the most pronounced differences between groups on ten stress subdomains. Overall, task-based stress is deemed to be the most stressful of the subdomains. Results are discussed with regard to planning prevention and intervention efforts.