BURNOUT SYNDROME AMONG TEACHERS

Various research studies (Hennig, Keller, 1996) indicate that the teaching profession is one of the most mentally demanding careers with high rates of job burnout or physical, mental and emotional exhaustion. Klimekova (2007) states that occupations with high burnout rates include physicians and nurses, teachers, social workers and service workers. In the study, the issue of burnout syndrome occurrence in primary and secondary school teachers was addressed. The authors based their study on the research findings indicating that primary school teachers exhibit the highest levels of burnout, secondary school teachers exhibit lower levels of burnout, and tertiary teachers are least affected by burnout symptoms. The main purpose of the study was to analyse and compare burnout among primary and secondary school teachers. The research sample consisted of 126 teachers - 48 elementary school teachers and 78 secondary school teachers. To obtain the data, the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) questionnaire was used. The MBI questionnaire was presented by Maslach and Jackson in 1981. There were several MBI questionnaire versions developed, and the original version with 22 items was employed in the study. The MBI questionnaire explores three areas, such as emotional exhaustion, personal accomplishment and depersonalization. In addition, the research was to identify differences differences in burnout syndrome intensity in relation to the length of employment and school level. Higher burnout rates were assumed to be reported by respondents with more than 20 years of teaching. The research results, however, did not confirm the assumption. It was found that burnout symptoms are more prevalent in primary school teachers than secondary school teachers.