The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Mental Health of Teachers and Its Possible Risk Factors: A Systematic Review

SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence and mental health of school staff: a cross-sectional study of schools from four areas of Montreal, Quebec in 2021

OBJECTIVES

To assess the seroprevalence of infection-acquired SARS-CoV-2 and the mental health of school/daycare staff in the months after reopening of schools in Montreal, Quebec (Canada) in the Fall of 2020 and whether these varied by school and participant characteristics.

DESIGN

A cross-sectional design based on a convenience sample of schools/daycares and staff was used as the originally planned longitudinal design was no longer feasible due to obstacles in recruitment, for example, teacher's strike.

SETTING

Forty-nine schools/daycares in four Montreal neighbourhoods from March to October 2021.

PARTICIPANTS

Three-hundred and sixty-two participants completed both questionnaires and serology tests.

PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES

SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence and prevalence of anxiety, depression, resilience and burnout/emotional exhaustion.

RESULTS

The seroprevalence estimate made representative to the Quebec population of educators was 8.6% (95% CI 5.2 to 13.0). The adjusted seroprevalence in high school was 20% that of elementary school (aRR=0.20, 95% CI 0.07 to 0.58). Thirty per cent of seropositive staff were exposed to a household member with confirmed COVID-19. Prevalence of high emotional exhaustion/burnout was 35%, 44% and 53% in daycare, elementary school and high school staff, respectively. However, moderate/severe anxiety and depression and low resilience did not exceed 18%. After adjusting for confounders, being very afraid of catching COVID-19 at school was associated with moderate-severe anxiety, moderate-severe depression and high emotional exhaustion (aRR=4.4, 95% CI 2.2 to 8.9; aRR=2.8, 95% CI 1.5 to 5.4; aRR=2.2, 95% CI 1.6 to 3.0, respectively).

CONCLUSION

The seroprevalence, anxiety and depression among school/daycare staff were comparable to the reported levels in the adult population of Quebec. The prevalence of emotional exhaustion/burnout was high across all school levels and exceeding the average across all occupations in the USA and in teachers in Germany.

Prevalence and Correlates of High Stress and Low Resilience among Teachers in Three Canadian Provinces

Objective: High stress levels can be problematic for teachers and indirectly affect students. Resilience may be a protective factor for overcoming stress. Knowledge about the prevalence and correlates of high stress and low resilience will provide information about the extent of the problem among teachers in Canada. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study among teachers in Alberta, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland and Labrador in Canada. Participants self-subscribed to the Wellness4Teachers supportive text messaging program and completed the online survey on enrollment. Baseline data collection occurred from 1 September 2022 to 30 August 2023. Resilience and stress were, respectively, assessed using the Brief Resilience Scale (BRS) and the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10). The data were analyzed with SPSS version 28 using chi-squared tests and binary logistic regression analysis. Results: A total of 1912 teachers subscribed to the Wellness4Teachers program, and 810 completed the baseline survey, yielding a response rate of 42.40%. Most of the participants, 87.8%, were female, and 12.2% were aged 18 to 61 and above. The prevalence of low resilience was 40.1%, and high stress had a prevalence of 26.3%. After controlling for all the other variables in the logistic regression model, participants with low resilience were 3.10 times more likely to experience high-stress symptoms than those with normal to high resilience (OR = 3.10; 95% CI: 2.18-4.41). Conversely, participants who reported high stress were 3.13 times more likely to have low resilience than those with low to moderate stress (OR = 3.13; 95% CI: 2.20-4.44). Additionally, junior and senior high school teachers were, respectively, 2.30 times (OR = 2.30; 95% CI: 1.25-4.23) and 2.12 times (OR = 2,12; 95% CI: 1.08-4.18) more likely to have low resilience compared to elementary school teachers. Conclusions: Our study findings suggest a high prevalence of stress and low resilience among teachers in the three Canadian provinces. Administrators, policymakers in the educational field, school boards, and governments should integrate stress management and resilience-building strategies into teachers' training and continuing professional development programs.

Positive mental health of Latin American university professors: A scientific framework for intervention and improvement

The post-pandemic stage covid-19 has revealed overloads, ambiguities, and conflicts of teachers in the performance of new roles in hybrid classrooms that demanded an urgent adaptation, this highlighted the need for priority attention to the mental health of teachers, however, there are still insufficient studies that transcend the diagnosis and are committed to establish proposals for improvement. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to establish a proposal for the promotion of positive mental health (PMH). METHODS: The study was deployed from a qualitative approach; using an ethnomethodological design that allowed studying how teachers create meanings and sense in their work context, an appreciative interview was conducted with an affirmative theme that allowed teachers to expose their experiences that were systematized and processed with ATLAS. ti software. The application of the interview was conducted online through a Google form, during the months of February and March 2023. Three hundred university professors who experienced the pandemic in universities in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, and Peru participated, based on a convenience sampling. RESULTS: The results of the deductive phase confirmed Lluch's PMH theoretical framework; however, new nuances or variations have been identified, which must be considered in the complex and dynamic nature of each PMH factor. From there, the results of the inductive phase allowed revealing emerging concepts, that is, new categories that would have the function of improving the PMH factors, which is why they have been denominated: dynamizing nuclei. PMH dynamizing nuclei are adjustment to work environment, soft skills, work-family balance, self-motivation, self-efficacy, subjective well-being, proactive strategies, engagement, resilience. CONCLUSIONS: Finally, with the results of both phases, the creation of an integrated model was generated, which was evaluated by six experts in a round of feedback, who highlighted the relevance of the findings and offered recommendations that were considered in the study. The new integrated model has revealed an interesting association, since it not only legitimizes the PMH's dynamizing cores, but also informs on which specific factor of the PMH these cores have the greatest impact, which has a high guiding value for intervention and improvement based on focused strategies.

Predictors of pretraumatic stress during the COVID-19 pandemic in Poland

BACKGROUND

Pretraumatic stress has the same symptoms as post-traumatic stress but instead pertains to anticipated threats. There is evidence that pretraumatic stress occurs among soldiers and pregnant people.

OBJECTIVE

We analyzed correlates of pretraumatic stress concerning the threat of COVID-19 infection.

METHOD

Our pilot study was cross-sectional (N = 74); our main study was longitudinal and consisted of three waves (N = 1067, N = 894, and N = 752 for Waves 1, 2, and 3, respectively). Our pilot study used correlation and multiple linear regression. Our main study used quadratic regression and a random intercept cross-lagged panel model.

RESULTS

The pilot study found that pretraumatic stress was positively correlated with agreeableness (r = .24, p < .01) and negatively correlated with emotional stability (r = -.30, p < .01) and intellect/imagination (r = -.37, p < .01). The main study demonstrated that pretraumatic stress was positively correlated with other measures of mental health problems during the COVID-19 pandemic and with perceived positive aspects of the pandemic (r = .11, p < .01). There is evidence of a U-shaped relationship between pretraumatic stress and perceived positive aspects of the pandemic. A random intercept cross-lagged panel model analysis demonstrated that pretraumatic stress in Wave 2 was negatively predicted by levels of prosocial behavior in Wave 1 (B = -1.130, p < .01).

CONCLUSION

Mental health professionals should take into account pretraumatic stress, not only as a possible consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak but more generally as a risk in situations that are new, difficult, and challenging for people.