Abstract
This study is aimed at comparing occupational stress and hypertension among onshore and offshore engineering professionals in Nigeria for informing regulatory bodies and oil and gas companies, so that recommendation for improvements can be made.
Questionnaires were distributed via a two-stage Delphi technique. 104 Engineering professionals responded to the questionnaire. Qualitative and quantitative analysis of the data were carried out with SPSS software.
A response rate of 52% was achieved. 90% of the respondents were males and 10% females. Age group responses include 20-29 (6%), 30-39 (44%), 40-49 (46%), 50-59 (4%).80% work on-shore whereas 20% work off-shore. 99% were Nigerians and other nationalities constituted 1%. Identified stress factors were cross tabulated with different demographic factors like age, gender, job location, and department.
Result shows that for test of awareness level of occupational stress at α = 0.05, association does not exist between the measures of awareness level of occupational stress and the demographic factors tested.
For test of association between stress factors and demographic components, results show that association exists. For test of current methods being employed to manage occupational stress induced hypertension, results shown that no association exists.
For test of evaluation of the sources of occupational stress, results show that association exists between stress factors and age, gender and department.
Results also show that association exists between the incidence of high blood pressure and job location. On-shore professionals were observed to be more prone than their off-shore counterparts.
The present study show that younger engineering professional (age group 30-39) are more at risk of occupational stress than other age groups with males being more at risk than females.
This study recommends among other things, discouraging subordinate micromanaging through robust human resources innovations, review of work hours from 8am/5pm to 7am/4pm and establishment of occupational stress committees by oil Companies.
