Teachers stress, health and behavior in teachers

The aim of the present work was to study whether chronic teaching stress affects health practices in teachers. Indices of burnout, health practices and other health-related behaviours have been measured by means of questionnaires completed by 1364 primary school teachers of 115 educational centers. The results indicated that the higher the levels of burnout, the worse the health practices. The intensity of this relationship depends on the type of health practice assessed (physical exercise, eating behaviour, hardiness, and self-care practices). Moreover, those teachers showing a lower rate of health practices report a worse health status. It is concluded that, during stressful periods the time devoted to sleep, rest, relax, etc, is reduced. This is probably due to the fact that, under those situations, the importance attributed to health care is relegated to a second term by the need of coping with more immediate problems.