Professional overload and dissatisfaction among teachers in Switzerland – associations with depressiveness and somatic complaints

Abstract

Based on a representative sample for Switzerland, this paper describes, for the first time, the psychometric qualities of the scales “professional overload” and “professional dissatisfaction” from Enzmann and Kleiber (1989) as well as their association with depressiveness and somatic complaints among teachers of 5th to 9th grades. The answers of 485 teachers were analyzed using principal component analysis and multiple regressions. In accordance with the results of previous studies, “professional overload” and “professional dissatisfaction” are two different dimensions. Professional overload and depressiveness are more frequent in the French speaking part than in the German speaking part. On the other hand, no difference was found between the linguistic regions with regards to professional dissatisfaction and somatic complaints. More than one third of the variance of depressiveness is explained only by the two variables, professional overload and professional dissatisfaction. In addition, both variables are associated with somatic complaints. The more the teachers are overloaded and dissatisfied, the more they report somatic or psychological problems. This is alarming because these complaints may be an indicator of chronic stress or burnout. Preventive actions that can contribute to improve the work conditions of teachers are suggested and described at the end of the paper.