Teaching at the cost of mental health? Comparing teachers with other social professions on work stress, depression and anxiety

Research has shown that attrition amongst teachers is high at the beginning and the end of the career. Considering the coming retirement of the baby boom generation, legislators wanting to motivate their workforce to work longer and expected increases in teacher shortages in several countries it is important to get insight in the causes of attrition amongst teachers.
Burnout and stress have been identified as important determinants of teacher attrition. The occurrence of burnout has been investigated in a wide range of occupational categories. In particular, contact professions (e.g., nurses, physicians, social workers, and teachers) turn out to be quite susceptible to burnout. Within this occupational category, across countries, teachers have been shown to report the highest levels of stress and burnout. These studies have been conducted in the nineties and call for replication. In addition mental health problem is the number one reason for sickness in the teaching profession in Belgium. For this reason we wish to compare the levels of mental and physical health between teachers and other social professions (nurses, social workers, doctors, psychologists). We conceptualize mental health by internationally validated scales such as the GHQ-12 and CIDI-SF for psychological distress and anxiety, depression. For physical health we give specific attention to chronic backpain as this has been reported to be a main cause of teacher distress. This allows us to get an overview of the mental and physical health among teachers in comparison with other social professions.