RESEARCH ARTICLE
The Assessment of Health Risk Behaviours among the Administrative Staff at an Institution of Higher Education
Gareth Smithdorf1, *, Jessica Reynders1, Esti Meyer1, Rucia November1, Makhaya Malema1
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2022Volume: 15
E-location ID: e187494452208100
Publisher ID: e187494452208100
DOI: 10.2174/18749445-v15-e2208100
Article History:
Received Date: 15/10/2021Revision Received Date: 13/1/2022
Acceptance Date: 10/2/2022
Electronic publication date: 30/09/2022
Collection year: 2022
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Background:
Health risk behaviours can impair an individual's physical and/or mental health. University administrators experience a sedentary lifestyle such as smoking, drinking, unhealthy eating habits, and work-related stress.
Objective:
This study assessed the health risk behaviours of administrators at an institution of higher education in the Western Cape, South Africa.
Methods:
A quantitative, cross-sectional study was conducted among 67 participants using an online questionnaire, focusing on demographics, work-related stress and environment, lifestyle-related behavior, and physical activity levels. SPSS, version 26 (2020), was used to compute the data.
Results:
The results of this study report significant mean value for administrative staff. Participants reported that they preferred physical activity as a coping mechanism. Administrators admitted to being stressed in their work situation for two weeks or more consecutively and to feeling overwhelmed by the workload. They reported working standard office hours from 08:30 to 16:30. On most days of the week, administrators reported they ate breakfast with at least one drink of alcohol and tried smoking. They spend hours playing video or computer games, sitting at a desk, and have poor sleep quality.
Conclusion:
Health risk behaviors such as smoking, excessive drinking, and having a sedentary lifestyle can harm job productivity.
