A study, leaded by the professor of the Department of Social Psychology from the Universitat de València Pedro Gil-Monte, has analyses the development of the burnout syndrome in teachers of Secondary Education in Valencian Community. It shows that the excess of students in classroom or of the management are factors that reduce the fitness for work of the teachers, and cause health problems and increase the absenteeism. This investigation has been published in “Journal of Psychodidactics”, in January 2016.
The results reveal that the guilty feeling developed by attitudes and negative and unsuitable behaviours into work and students and their family is a key factor in the development of the syndrome and they contribute to the decline of teachers health. Moreover, as a second conclusion, the work overload of the teachers in Secondary Education and the lack of clarity in their professional roll “contribute to the appearance of the work burnout syndrome, at the same time that to the development, in some cases, of guilty feeling not to do properly their work”, points Gil-Monte.
The study, titled “The paper of the fault in the relationship between the burnout syndrome and the inclination of the absenteeism of teachers in Secondary Education”, is an important reference point to doctors and therapeutics, since it facilitate the diagnosis and treatment of different kind of syndromes, according to authors. “High levels of psychosocial risks in the work damage the contribution of the teachers in society and the formation of future generations ”, adds Pedro R. Gil-Monte, who is the head of the Unit of Psychosocial Research of Organizational Conduct (UNIPSICO) from the Universitat.
The burnout syndrome is a psychologist answer to chronic work stress with interpersonal and emotional character which appears in professional of service organizations which work in contact with clients or users of the organization. This answer is characterized by a cognitive deterioration which consists in the loss of work excitement; by a affective deterioration characterized by an emotional and physical exhaustion ; and by the appearance of attitudes and negative conducts into students and into the organization, in form if indifferent behaviours, cold, distant and, in occasions, detrimental. Sometimes, theses symptoms are accompanied by a guilty feeling.
According to the research, developed with a sample of 120 secondary teachers, a 68,5% women and a 31,5% men, the results show that guilty feelings generate tow different professional profiles.
On the one hand, the teachers who believe that strategies to face work stress without implication in work and in attention to students are effective to face psychological burnout. And on the other hand, the second profile, developed by teachers who feel guilty of their inappropriate attitudes to the work which generate a rejection of this and show labour absenteeism rates in various modalities and more frequently.
According the study, first profile teachers have not health problem frequently, but the have distant and indifferent manners into work and students. This behaviour has negative consequences in the training of children and teenagers and supposes a deterioration in the quality of the services. In the second case, professional who mainly choose work absenteeism are more implicated into work, fact that makes them to develop higher levels of guilty feelings. The persistence in time of this symptoms, said Gil-Monte, “ends damaging the health of the teachers who suffer them and is accompanied by a distance into the origin of the problem”.
Psychological theory validated in Brazil, Chile, Italy, Poland or Portugal
The conclusion of this study, which had had with the financial support of the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (Project Ref.), have been obtained by the application of the theoretical model and the psychometrical instrument (CESQT) developed by the professor Gil-Monte to study the burnout syndrome. Until now, this instrument of high ability of preventive diagnosis has been validated in several European countries (Germany, Italy, Poland, Portugal and Czech Republic) and in Spanish speaking Latin American countries like Argentina, Chile, Colombia or Mexico, apart from Brazil.
Method
The 120 professionals who participated in the study published in January 2016 were from to types of high schools: two centres type A, with more than 24 education units authorized; and three type B, with between 12 and 24 units. High schools were selected randomly in Valencia province, and then there was an interview with the management team of each centre to explain the range of the research. The next phase, to deliver and to get questionnaire, was accomplished between May and June 2012. A 35,93% of teachers who were facilitated the questionnaire participated (120 from 334).
The work overload was evaluated through the subscale Work Overload of the questionnaire UNIPSICO (Gil-Monte, 2012), compounded by 6 items. For example: ”When you are working, do you find specially hard situations?”, from which there are 5 answers from “Never” to “Frequently: everyday ”. Propensity to absenteeism, on the other hand, was evaluated through the subscale of absenteeism inclination, from INIPSICO questionnaire, compounded by four items. For example: “Would you communicate that you are ill, when you do not feel well at all, not to work?”, valued in a frequency scale of five ranks from 0 to 4 (from “Always” to “Never”.)
Finally, the levels of burnout syndrome were evaluated by a tool, the Questionnaire to the Evaluation of Work Burnout Syndrome (CESQT), compounded by 20 items distributed in 4 groups of questions, with several answer each one. The themes were “Work Excitement”, “Psychological Burnout”, “Indolence” and “Fault”.
Working life quality and psychosocial factors of work
Pedro R. Gil-Monte is professor accredited as full professor from the Universitat by the ANECa, of the Department of Social Psychology of the Universitat de València, and head of the Unit of Psychosocial Research of Organizational Conduct (UNIPSICO) (http://www.uv.es/~unipsico/). His research is centred in working life quality, in the evaluation of psychosocial factors in work, and in the prevention of occupational risks of psychosocial nature. Nowadays, he head the research project “Transoccupational Validation of a model in the development of burnout syndrome: development and evaluation of an intervention programme”, funded by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (Ref. PSI2013-48185-R). He has authored more than 200 publications in scientific magazines, books and chapters.
Article
Beatriz Rabasa, Hugo Figueiredo-Ferraz, Pedro R. Gil-Monte y Marta Llorca-Pellicer: ‘The paper of the fault in the relationship between the burnout syndrome and the inclination of the absenteeism of teachers in Secondary Education. ‘Journal of Psychodidactics’, 2016, 21(1), 103-119. DOI: 10.1387/RevPsicodidact.13076
Last update: 25 de february de 2016 07:00.
News release
