Psychiatr Hung. 2025;40(2):140-150.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Depression, as part of mental health issues among professionals working in the field of education, is associated with burnout and several personal protective and risk factors in relatin to their work environment. Considering gender distribution of the profession, investigation of female educators should get special attention, partly due to their substantial overrepresentation, partly due to their elevated involvement. Therefore, the aim of our study was to analyze risk and protective factors (burnout, work motivatons, teacher resilience and well-being) of depressibe symptomatology in a sample of female educators.
METHODS: Participants of our online, anonymous, cross-sectional survey were Hungarian female teachers (N = 520). We applied the following scales for measuring variables: Center of Epidemiologic Studies – Depression Scale; The Mini Oldenburg Burnout Inventory; Teacher Subjective Wellbeing Questionnaire; The Multidimensional Work Motivation Scale; Teachers’ Resilience Scale. Data analysis was conducted with the help of SPSS, using descriptive statistics, correlation, and logistic regression analyses.
RESULTS: Thirty-five percent of the sample demonstrated depressive symptoms based on the CES-D scale. Risk factors were identified with logistic regression analysis including dimensions of burnout, especially exhaustion, and amotivation. Teacher well-being, intrinsic and identified motivation, personal and social resilience emerged as protective factors.
CONCLUSIONS: The novelty of our research is the involvement of occupational factors in relation to mental health. Our findings highlight the great risk of depressive symptoms among female teachers, which has been strongly linked to exhaustion dimension of burnout and amotivation. Screening for depression in due time would be important among teachers as well as strengthening protective factors and detecting workplace stressors, and managing risk factors.
PMID:41456163
