Prevalence and risk factors of common mental disorders among teachers

Abstract

This study aimed at identifying the prevalence of Common Mental Disorders (CMDs) in teachers and at analyzing associations between sociodemographic, occupational, and psychosocial factors and CMDs. This was a cross-sectional study with a random sample of 679 teachers, distributed in 37 elementary schools located in a city in the metropolitan area of Porto Alegre (in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil). The instruments used were the Self-Reporting Questionnaire (SRQ-20); the Battery of Psychosocial Risk Assessment to evaluate role ambiguity, social support, self-efficacy, autonomy, interpersonal conflicts, role conflict, and overload; and a questionnaire to assess sociodemographic and occupational variables. Results showed a 29.7% prevalence of CMDs. Three-stage hierarchical logistic regression was performed. Having role ambiguity, overload, low level of social support, and low perceived self-efficacy were associated with CMDs. Greater attention should be given to psychosocial threats in the school context, since these kinds of variables were associated with CMDs in teachers.