Anxiety and Stress as Correlates of Financial Adjustment among Pre-Retirement Age Public Primary School Teachers in North-East Geo-political Zone of Nigeria

The study investigated how anxiety and stress correlates with financial adjustment among pre-retirement age public primary school teachers in North-Eastern Nigeria. Three specific objectives with corresponding research questions guided the study and three hypotheses were formulated and tested at 0.05 level of significance. The study adopted a correlational research design. The population of the study made up of 53,142 public primary school teachers in 10, 173 schools in North Eastern, Nigeria. The sample size for the study was 397 public primary school teachers. The selection of sample size was done using proportionate stratified random sampling and convenience sampling techniques. The instrument used for data collection was a structured questionnaire titled “Anxiety, Stress and Financial Adjustment Questionnaire (ASFAQ)†. The questionnaire was validated by five experts and its reliability was established using Cronbach Alpha method. The reliability coefficients were 0.65 for the anxiety scale, 0.72 for stress scale and 0.61 for financial adjustment scale. Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient (PPMC) and Multiple Regression Analysis were used for data analysis via Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). Findings of the study revealed that anxiety and stress correlated negatively with financial adjustment among pre-retirement age public primary school teachers. The test of hypotheses found that anxiety and stress significantly predict financial adjustment of pre-retirement age public primary school teachers in North–Eastern Nigeria. The study concluded that anxiety and stress play significant roles in determining the financial retirement adjustment of pre-retirement age public primary school teachers. Based on the findings, the researcher recommended that, counsellors should adopt interventions like the pre-retirement counselling therapy to help teachers with anxiety issues who are finding it difficult to make social decisions that can have impact on their lives during retirement.