Browsing by Author "Vuorikko, Salla"

Objectives Teachers experience a lot of stress, and their work has become increasingly demanding, which may contribute to depression. It has been reported that teachers’ depressive symptoms impair the quality of teaching. The literature reviewed here considers both major and minor depression. The purpose of this paper is to review teachers’ occupational risks for depression, their prevalence of depression and how depression affects the quality of teaching. Prevention of depression and enhancement of occupational well-being are also briefly discussed. Methods The literature was mainly selected from scientific article databases. Also reports from the Finnish National Board of Education and the Finnish Institution of Occupational Health were included. Results and conclusions Work load, burnout, insecure working environment and lack of social support at work increase the risk for teacher depression. Research results suggesting that teachers have worse mental health than other professionals are not conclusive. Teacher’s depression impair classroom-learning environment, thus making learning more difficult. Depression can be prevented by reducing stress or by increasing resources. More uniform research methodology is needed to get comparable findings about teachers’ depression.