Assessment of risk factors which cause emotional burn-out in teachers from various educa-tional establishments in Magadan region

Abstract

The authors examined 32 teachers from a natural sciences lyceum, 26 teachers from Magadan vocational schools, and 32 teachers from a boarding school located in Evensk, a remote settlement in Magadan region. The research goal was to assess risk factors which could lead to occupational emotional burn-out syndrome in teachers working in secondary and vocational schools in Magadan region. Emotional burn-out parameters were determined as per V.V. Boiko's "Diagnostics of emotional burn-out" questionnaire; neuro-psychic adaptation was measured as per a scale developed by I.N. Gurvich; social frustration was determined as per L.I. Wasserman's technique. The research revealed that "Strain" syndrome phase didn't occur in any group of the examined teachers. "Resistance" phase was the most apparent one as it was just starting to appear. "Depletion" phase was detected only in teachers from a lyceum in Magadan, and it was at the stage of just being formed. This teachers' group also had more apparent specific symptoms as per various burn-out phases against two other examined groups, and this discrepancy was statistically significant. We showed that schoolteachers from Magadan and Evensk were significantly more frustrated with various social functioning spheres and had more apparent problems in their neuro-psychic sphere than teachers from vocational schools (p<0.05). Social frustration and occupational activities make their contribution into disorders in teachers' psychic adaptation. High occupational loads borne by schoolteachers, especially in a lyceum where requirements and educational loads are more serious, make adverse impacts exerted by frustrating factors even worse, and result in disorders occurring in neuro-psychic sphere. Occupational deformation of schoolteachers' personalities deteriorates due to long-term exposure to extreme climatic conditions existing in the North-Eastern regions. Teachers from vocational schools don't run similar risks of occupational burn-out syndrome which can be explained by less strict requirements to educational process in such establishments.

Keywords

• teachers
• risk factor
• emotional burn-out syndrome
• frustration
• neuro-psychic adaptation
• the North