Prevalence of Burnout among Teachers during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Meta-Analysis

Naiara Ozamiz-Etxebarria (), Idoia Legorburu Fernnadez, Darren M. Lipnicki, Nahia Idoiaga Mondragon () and Javier Santabárbara
Additional contact information
Naiara Ozamiz-Etxebarria: Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology, University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, 48940 Leioa, Spain
Idoia Legorburu Fernnadez: Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology, University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, 48940 Leioa, Spain
Darren M. Lipnicki: Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia
Nahia Idoiaga Mondragon: Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology, University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, 48940 Leioa, Spain
Javier Santabárbara: Department of Microbiology, Pediatrics, Radiology, and Public Health, University of Zaragoza, C/Domingo Miral s/n, 50009 Zaragoza, Spain

IJERPH, 2023, vol. 20, issue 6, 1-13

Abstract: Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, many studies have found that there has been a lot of teacher overload. One of the additional burdens has been that they have had to teach online. In addition, when they returned to face-to-face classes, they had to follow all the hygiene rules so that the COVID-19 virus would not spread. It is therefore not surprising that, during this pandemic period, high levels of psychological symptoms have been reported among teachers. Among this symptomatology, burnout has been very frequent among teachers. Therefore, the aim of this study is to conduct a meta-analysis to determine the overall prevalence of burnout among teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic. For this purpose, a search was conducted for cross-sectional studies listed in PubMed from 1 December 2019 to 14 February 2022 that reported on the prevalence of burnout among teachers. A total of nine studies from eight different countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, and North and South America, were included in this study. The pooled prevalence of burnout among teachers was 52% (95% CI 33–71%), which is higher than burnout rates reported for health professionals. There was significant heterogeneity between studies ( I 2 = 99%, p -value < 0.001), and the prevalence of burnout was higher in women and school teachers (compared to university educators), and lower in American studies. This meta-analysis concludes that teachers worldwide experienced a high rate of burnout during the COVID-19 pandemic. This has implications not only for the teachers themselves, but also for the quality of the education they were able to provide. This education has an influence on the student population. The possible long-term effects are yet to be determined.

Keywords: burnout; teachers; COVID-19; prevalence; meta-analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/6/4866/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/6/4866/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:20:y:2023:i:6:p:4866-:d:1093042

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().