Abstract:
As for any valuable resource, a teacher's premature death or retirement for ill health reasons, and/or long periods off work because of illness, represent a poor return on the economic outlay provided by the community for his/her training. Yet, the possibility exists that one or a number of contributing factors to the cause of dealth or debilitating illness may be lifestyle behaviours that were initiated due to situations encountered during the training period in the training environment. The majority of trainee teachers commence tertiary education at a time when they are attempting to master one of life's major transitions - adolescence. Also, first year tertiary education can be stressful. For the transitioning adolescent student, the unique stresses perceived from the tertiary academic environment in conjunction with those from family, financial, relationship and personal sources may have immediate impact on the mental and physical dimensions of his/her health. Further, during this time there exists the potential for the initiation of lifestyle behaviours, as coping strategies and/or as means of achieving mastery of developmental tasks, that will cause long term health status decrement. An extensive study, carried out on two campuses of a Brisbane tertiary institution investigated the changes that occurred to a number of health status indicators in a volunteer group of transitioning adolescent tertiary students during the first term of their teacher training. This paper deals specifically with the blood pressure changes that occurred and generally with selected associated variables.