MODERATING INFLUENCE OF PERSONAL FACTORS ON STRESS AMONG ACADEMIC STAFF OF MAKERERE UNIVERSITY, UGANDA

The study investigated whether personal factors had a moderating influence on stress among academic staff of Makerere University. The phenomenon of stress is a major factor that negatively affects work performance in universities and negatively affects the workers' health state. Therefore, to mitigate the effects of stress, it is necessary to minimize factors, particularly personal factors that cause stress among employees. Pragmatism paradigm was used to conduct this research and cross-sectional survey too with an approach of convergent parallel survey was used to arrive at the findings of this study. The researcher used 253 respondents for data collection. The researcher further used disproportionate stratified sampling to select colleges and staff, and purposive sampling for administrators. The collection of Quantitative data employed stress questionnaire and inferential statistics and descriptive analysis were used for data analysis. On the other hand, structured interview was used to collect qualitative data and thematic analysis was used to analyse the qualitative data. Findings from this study showed that individual factors (self-esteem, locus of control as a personality factor, and optimism) partook a moderating impact on academic staff stress. The combination of predictors and moderators contributed 41.9% of the variance in academic stress (Adjusted R2 = .419). It was further revealed that there is high stress at 74.38% that the Makerere University academic staff reported. Consequently, intra-organizational factors and extra-organizational factors partake a bearing on academic staff stress, and individual factors interact with intra-organizational and extra-organizational factors to effect stress among academic staff at Makerere University. It was thus recommended that organizations and institutions should initiate and embolden a communication that is open and honest so as to advance a working environment where there is less likelihood of stress among the employees. There should be an assurance from the academic staff Managers and supervisors in universities about intra-organizational factors such as workload and responsibility for people having no bearing on stress amongst academic staff of Makerere University. Article visualizations: