The Effect of Multiple Designations on the Mental Health of Faculty Members in a State College in Masbate

Abstract

This study explored the effect of multiple designations on the mental health of faculty members in a state college in Masbate. Employing a quantitative, research design to examine the respondents’   demographic profile, and assess the levels of depression, anxiety, stress, and burnout using standardized psychological tools – the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scales (DASS-21) and the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI). The study looked into the Demographic profile of the respondents that includes the age, sex, civil status, number of official designations, number of committee membership in a year, number of student organization advisories, number of thesis advisees and teaching load (in units) in order to look into the workload of the faculty members. Twenty faculty with more than 2 designations were purposively selected for this study. Findings in the demographic profile of the respondents shows that the faculty members are mostly within the young professionals, designations are equally distributed to male and female respondents, majority are married, and most of them are holding heavy workloads. Descriptive analysis revealed that while most respondents reported normal levels of depression, anxiety, stress and burnout, a notable portion exhibited mild to moderate levels of depression and stress, mild to severe levels of anxiety, and moderate to high levels of burnout within the exhaustion, depersonalization and personal achievement dimensions.  The study concludes that while most of the faculty members with multiple designations exhibited normal level of depression, anxiety, stress and most are within low level of burnout, prolonged exposure to work overload and accumulated administrative tasks may lead to onset of mental health risks.  The study recommends for “One-Personnel, One-Designation” policy, strict implementation of institution’s office order  no. 124, s. 2025, section 4, institutionalized mental health and wellness programs, and hiring of plantilla item for psychologist in higher education institutions.