Is Mental Health Important to Influence Interpersonal Competence Among Teacher of Children with Disability?: A Survey in District of Central Java']Java, Indonesia

This research aims to examine the correlation between student's type of severity and teacher's interpersonal competence with teacher's mental health as a covariance. There were 113 teachers from four special educations for children with disability who were asked to complete two scales, GHQ (12 items; alpha = 0.917) and interpersonal competence scale (25 items; alpha = 0.889). Data were analyzed using Ancova (Analysis of covariance). The result showed that 57.7% of total subjects have poor mental health condition. Several symptoms of poor mental health occurring were 68% claimed that they had some difficulties in making decision, 74% claimed that they are unable to deal with their problems, 77% complained that they had some concentration difficulties, and 74.7% suffered from sleeping problem because of anxiety. Students' types of severity (physical, RM, SL-LD, ASD, emotional disorder, ADHD, Double-handicapped) did not influence teachers' interpersonal competence (F = 0.859; sig. = 0.502; R-2 = 4.82%), whereas mental health as covariance influenced teachers' interpersonal competence (F = 5.506; sig. = 0.027; R-2 = 16.9%). Interaction between students' types of severity and teachers' mental health did not influence teachers' interpersonal competence (F = 1.020; sig. = 0.417). As a conclusion, there was correlation between teacher' mental health as a covariance with teacher's interpersonal competence, but there was no correlation between student's type of severity with teacher' interpersonal competence. Data of teacher's mental health and interpersonal competence in special educational services is required considering to make an improvement in government's policy about educational for children with special need. The proposed approach basically data about teacher's mental health and interpersonal competence in the context of special educational services.