Chronic Work Stress and Depression: Assessing the Mediating Role of Teacher Burnout

Due to the stressful nature of teaching, the mental health of teachers is a growing concern. Stress, burnout, and high turnover have reached alarming levels, threatening quality education and subsequent student achievement. Depression is one of the predominant reasons teachers give when leaving the profession; thus, the purpose of this study was to test a conceptual model using path analysis to examine the relationship between chronic work stress, the mediating role of teacher burnout, and depression using a convenience sample of public school teachers (N=267) with an average of 17.5 years teaching experience. Results indicated that teachers experiencing greater stress were significantly more burned out in terms of emotional exhaustion (b=.61,p<.001), depersonalization (b=.38,p<.001), and reduced personal accomplishment (b=.28,p<.001). Emotional exhaustion was moderately (b=.38,p<.001) related to depression, while depersonalization (b=.13,p<.05) and reduced personal accomplishment (b=.11,p<.05) had small positive relationships. After controlling for burnout and demographic variables, the relationship between stress and depression was small (b=.13,p<.05). The indirect effect of stress on depression via burnout was significant for the emotional exhaustion subscale, which was moderate (b=.23). The overall total effect of stress on depression, taking together the direct and indirect effects via burnout, was strong and positive (b=.44,p<.001), accounting for 44% of the total variance in depression.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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~Hans Selye