One in 20 teachers in England are reporting a long-lasting mental
health problem and their wellbeing has not improved over the past
three decades, according to a new UCL study.
The working paper, published today and funded by the
Nuffield Foundation is the first piece of research to examine the
mental health and wellbeing of teachers in England over time.
Researchers analysed data from over 20,000 teachers and education
professionals collected at different waves between 1992 and 2018
from three large population based surveys.
Lead author, Professor John Jerrim (UCL Institute of
Education), said: “The teaching profession in England is
currently in the midst of a crisis and one potential reason why
its struggling to recruit and retain enough teachers is due to
the pressures of the job.
“It has long been known that teaching is a stressful
and challenging career and we wanted to see if the mental health
and wellbeing of teachers had improved or declined, especially in
light of government promises to ease the burden upon the teaching
profession.”
The findings show that around five per cent of
teachers in England now say that they suffer from a long-lasting
mental health problem which has lasted (or is likely to last) for
more than 12 months, up from just one per cent in the 1990s.
There has also been an increase in the percentage of education
professionals who have been prescribed antidepressant medication,
from around one per cent in the early 2000s to around five per
cent today.
The study finds, however, that this increase in
reported mental health problems is not specific to education, and
can also be observed for other professionals. For instance,
nurses, accountants and human resource (HR) workers are also now
much more likely to report suffering from a long-lasting mental
health problem than in the 1990s.
Although the researchers saw an increase in mental
health issues being reported and treated amongst teachers, they
say this could be due to teachers – like many other professional
workers – being more willing to talk about such issues and to
seek help.
This was consistent with the team’s finding that
there has not been any increase or decrease in unhappiness,
anxiety or feelings of low-self-worth amongst teachers over the
last decade.
Professor Jerrim added: “The results from our study
may therefore not be as worrying as they first seem, if it means
more teachers who are struggling with their mental health are now
getting help. However, more needs to done to monitor and improve
the mental health and wellbeing of the teaching profession –
similar to the commitment that has been made to track teachers’
workloads over time.”
Sinéad Mc Brearty, CEO at Education Support, the UK’s
mental health and wellbeing charity for education staff, said:
“The sharp rise in teachers reporting long-term mental health
conditions mirrors the increase in the severity of cases that we
support through our counselling helpline. Teachers are presenting
with ever more severe mental health symptoms.
“Education Support’s 2019 Teacher Wellbeing Index
confirmed that work-related anxiety and depression are at high
levels in education - higher than the general workforce. We
welcome this longitudinal analysis: it enriches our collective
understanding of the complex interaction between work-related
stress and mental health.”
Josh Hillman, Director of Education at the Nuffield
Foundation, said: “In one sense, these findings are reassuring in
that the levels of life-satisfaction, happiness and anxiety
amongst teachers has remained broadly stable over the last twenty
years.
“However, we also know that the pressures of
workload, working hours and job satisfaction are contributing to
a crisis in teacher retention, and those pressures still need to
be addressed if we want to keep good teachers in our
schools.”
Researchers based their analysis upon three data
sources: The Labour Force Survey, the Annual Population Survey
and the Health Survey for England. Together, these allowed the
researchers to investigate how several different measures of
teachers’ mental health and wellbeing have changed over the last
two decades. This includes standardised measures of depression
and anxiety, prescription of antidepressants and self-reported
long-lasting mental health problems. They were also able to
compare trends in these measures for teachers to other
professional groups.
