Occupational Medicine doi:10.1093/occmed/kqx125
Emotion-regulation ability, role stress and teachers’ mental health S. Mérida-López1, N. Extremera1 and L. Rey2 Department of Social Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, University of Málaga, Málaga 29071, Spain, 2Department of Personality Assessment and Psychological Treatment, Faculty of Psychology, University of Málaga, Málaga 29071, Spain.
1
Correspondence to: N. Extremera, Department of Social Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, University of Málaga, Campus de Teatinos s/n, Málaga 29071, Spain. Tel: (+34) 952132390; e-mail: [email protected] Background Work-related stressors, including role ambiguity and role conflict, are related to psychological maladjustment and mental ill-health. However, to date, the role of personal resources such as emotionregulation ability (ERA) in the prediction of mental health indicators has not been addressed. Aims
To examine whether ERA would contribute to explaining teachers’ depression, anxiety and stress symptoms beyond role ambiguity and role conflict.
Methods
We carried out a cross-sectional questionnaire survey. We used a correlation matrix and hierarchical regression models to analyse the data.
Results
Three hundred and thirty-six Spanish teachers (185 female) from several grade levels completed the surveys (40% response rate). Role ambiguity and role conflict were positively related to depression, anxiety and stress symptoms. ERA was negatively related to teachers’ scores on depressive, anxious and stress symptoms, with predictive power above the main effects of role ambiguity and role conflict. An interaction between role ambiguity and ERA was also significant in predicting depression.
Conclusions Our study provides preliminary evidence suggesting the development of integrative models considering work-related stressors along with personal resources such as ERA aiming to prevent teachers’ mental ill-health. Future studies should examine the influence of ERA on psychological symptoms using longitudinal designs. Key words
Anxiety; depression; emotion regulation ability; emotional intelligence; mental health; occupational stress; role stress; stress; teachers.
Introduction Teachers’ health is increasingly becoming a worldwide concern due to the high incidence of occupational stress experienced by teachers and education staff [1]. Health problems reported by teachers implicate teaching as a stressful occupation [2–4]. In identifying important sources of teacher stress, certain work-related stressors such as role ambiguity and role conflict have shown consistent associations with decreased job performance, job dissatisfaction and mental ill-health [5–7]. Occupational stress and mental health-related difficulties experienced by teachers have been found to influence the growing teacher attrition within school settings [8,9]. Consequently, it is not surprising that prior research has focused on individual differences in the correlates of role stressors, health and well-being outcomes. Accordingly, several studies
have emphasized the role of mediating and moderating variables in the stressor–strain relationship [10–12]. Mayer and Salovey’s (1997) construct of emotional intelligence (EI) has been found to be a major personal resource in the workplace. Four emotional abilities are interactively involved in EI: perceiving emotions, using emotions, understanding emotions and regulating one’s own and others’ emotions. In particular, the emotionregulation ability (ERA) has been proposed as crucial for EI because it is robustly associated with mental health and well-being indicators [13–16]. Similarly, ERA has been suggested as a buffer that might reduce the harmful consequences of stress and alleviate mental health-related difficulties [14,15,17]. Consistent with this approach, the work-related stressors associated with teaching tasks might cause emotionally adverse reactions in teachers over time, thereby increasing the risk of
© The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society of Occupational Medicine. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: [email protected]
Page 2 of 6 OCCUPATIONAL MEDICINE
mental ill-health [2–6]. Nevertheless, emotional abilities such as ERA might modify the manner in which teachers view and react to everyday stressful events, thereby helping alleviate psychological symptoms [17,18]. Hence, an important question that might be raised in this field is to what extent does ERA relate to role stress and teachers’ mental health. In this sense, the theoretical underpinnings of the ERA construct suggest its influence on teachers’ mental health indicators above and beyond the influence of classic work-related stressors such as role ambiguity and role conflict [14,15]. Taking into consideration prior research examining ERA, work-related stressors and mental health indicators, we investigated the following hypotheses: (i) high role ambiguity and role conflict will be associated with high scores in depression, anxiety and stress symptomatology; (ii) greater ERA will be related to low role ambiguity, role conflict, depression, anxiety and stress; (iii) high levels of ERA will have a significant influence on teachers’ mental health, independent of the effect of role ambiguity/conflict and (iv) ERA and role/ambiguity/conflict will interact in predicting depression, anxiety and stress symptoms. The aim of our study was 3-fold. Firstly, we aimed to examine the associations between role stressors, ERA and mental health indicators in a teacher sample. Secondly, we wanted to determine the contribution of role ambiguity and role conflict levels to teachers’ depression, anxiety and stress. In addition, we examined whether the inclusion of ERA would significantly add a predictive model of teachers’ mental health, beyond what may be accounted for by role ambiguity and role conflict. Finally, we examined if the interaction of role ambiguity/role conflict with ERA would significantly add to the prediction of depression, anxiety and stress.
Methods Participants were recruited with the help of psychology students at the University of Malaga. These students were instructed on administration of the questionnaire by the investigators. Later, they contacted different school centres and asked teaching professionals whether they would participate in a research study on the associations between job factors and occupational well-being. Therefore, an incidental sampling was taken based on teachers who were willing to participate in our study. Around 900 teachers from several centres located in southern Spain (Malaga) were contacted.The self-administered questionnaires were in paper-and-pencil format with written instructions. To assure anonymity, no identifying information was requested. Participants were fully informed about the voluntary basis of their participation and received no financial compensation. Questionnaires were completed either at home or in small groups under the supervision of a research assistant. Completing the
surveys lasted 20 min on average. Once the questionnaires were completed, the students returned them to the research staff for statistical processing. Questionnaires included measures of socio-demographic variables along with the Spanish versions of the Role Stress Scale (RSS), the emotion management subscale of the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Scale (MSCEIT) and the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS). With respect to our study variables, we evaluated role ambiguity and role conflict with the Spanish version of the RSS [19,20]. These subscales consist of 13 items using a Likert-type scale with ‘1 = totally disagree’ to ‘7 = totally agree’. Examples of the items are ‘My authority matches the responsibilities assigned to me’ and ‘I often get myself involved in situations in which there are conflicting requirements’. In our study, Cronbach’s α for role ambiguity was 0.81 and for role conflict was 0.84. We assessed ERA with the Spanish version of the MSCEIT [21,22]. The emotion regulation subscale of the MSCEIT evaluates both intrapersonal and interpersonal emotion regulation abilities through 29 items including emotion management and emotional relationships tasks. Participants are required to judge the actions that are most effective in each situation. In this study, split-half reliability for the Spanish version of the subscale was 0.85. To measure mental health outcomes, we used the Spanish version of the DASS [23,24]. This 21-item instrument assesses the negative emotional states of depression, anxiety and stress in the past week with a Likert-type scale, with ‘0 = did not apply to me at all’ to ‘3 = applied to me very much, or most of the time’. Examples of the items are ‘I couldn’t seem to experience any positive feelings at all’ and ‘I felt I was close to panic’. Scores on these three subscales were coded following standard procedure, with scores coded so that higher scores indicated poorer mental health. Cronbach’s α for the depression, anxiety and stress subscales were 0.85, 0.85 and 0.88, respectively. Teaching level was coded by location (elementary school, primary school, secondary school, university or non-specified). Additional covariates included age, and teaching experience (coded as continuous variables) and gender (categorical). Initial analyses were performed by calculating means, standard deviations and ranges for the aggregate scales from the questionnaire data. Bivariate Pearson correlations between our study variables were calculated in a zeroorder correlation matrix. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses were then constructed using depression, anxiety and stress as dependent variables. These analyses were conducted in order to examine the main effects of role ambiguity and role conflict, the incremental validity of ERA and the potential interaction of these variables in the prediction of depression, anxiety and stress. This method allows examination of the increment in R2 from addition of another predictor variable into the regression equation,
S. MÉRIDA-LÓPEZ ET AL.: EMOTION-REGULATION ABILITY AND TEACHERS’ MENTAL HEALTH Page 3 of 6
and determination of whether the added variable explains additional variance not explained by measures previously entered. It this case, it allows comparison of ERA against measures of other constructs such as role ambiguity/ conflict in order to examine the incremental validity of ERA in the prediction of psychological symptomatology. Results were expressed as unstandardized and standardized linear regression coefficients with 95% confidence intervals. Analyses were performed using IBM SPSS Statistics v.24.0. The study protocol was approved as part of the project PSI2012-38813 by the Research Ethics Committee of the University of Malaga.
Results Approximately 40% of the teachers contacted were willing to complete the questionnaires (n = 352). The responses provided by 16 participants (4%) were removed from the study due to missing data. Hence, the final sample consisted of 336 teachers (185 female, 151 male) representing elementary teachers (4%), intermediate teachers (23%), secondary teachers (27%), university teachers (22%) and teachers who did not report the grade level they taught (24%). The mean age of the sample was 43 years (SD = 10.02) and ranged from 22 to 68. Teaching experience was assessed in months and ranged from 6 months to 46 years. Descriptive statistics from the aggregated questionnaire responses are shown in Table 1. Table 2 shows Pearson correlations between the study variables. Role ambiguity and role conflict were both significantly and positively correlated with the outcome variables depression, anxiety
and stress. ERA was significantly and negatively associated with both role ambiguity (r = −0.20) and role conflict (r = −0.22), whilst also significantly and negatively correlated with depression, anxiety and stress. Preliminary analyses indicated no significant gender or teaching level differences in the main outcome variables, so these socio-demographic factors were not included in regression analyses. However, teachers’ age and teaching experience showed significant associations with anxious symptoms (r = −0.18, P
Emotion-regulation ability, role stress and teachers’ mental health S. Mérida-López1, N. Extremera1 and L. Rey2 Department of Social Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, University of Málaga, Málaga 29071, Spain, 2Department of Personality Assessment and Psychological Treatment, Faculty of Psychology, University of Málaga, Málaga 29071, Spain.
1
Correspondence to: N. Extremera, Department of Social Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, University of Málaga, Campus de Teatinos s/n, Málaga 29071, Spain. Tel: (+34) 952132390; e-mail: [email protected] Background Work-related stressors, including role ambiguity and role conflict, are related to psychological maladjustment and mental ill-health. However, to date, the role of personal resources such as emotionregulation ability (ERA) in the prediction of mental health indicators has not been addressed. Aims
To examine whether ERA would contribute to explaining teachers’ depression, anxiety and stress symptoms beyond role ambiguity and role conflict.
Methods
We carried out a cross-sectional questionnaire survey. We used a correlation matrix and hierarchical regression models to analyse the data.
Results
Three hundred and thirty-six Spanish teachers (185 female) from several grade levels completed the surveys (40% response rate). Role ambiguity and role conflict were positively related to depression, anxiety and stress symptoms. ERA was negatively related to teachers’ scores on depressive, anxious and stress symptoms, with predictive power above the main effects of role ambiguity and role conflict. An interaction between role ambiguity and ERA was also significant in predicting depression.
Conclusions Our study provides preliminary evidence suggesting the development of integrative models considering work-related stressors along with personal resources such as ERA aiming to prevent teachers’ mental ill-health. Future studies should examine the influence of ERA on psychological symptoms using longitudinal designs. Key words
Anxiety; depression; emotion regulation ability; emotional intelligence; mental health; occupational stress; role stress; stress; teachers.
Introduction Teachers’ health is increasingly becoming a worldwide concern due to the high incidence of occupational stress experienced by teachers and education staff [1]. Health problems reported by teachers implicate teaching as a stressful occupation [2–4]. In identifying important sources of teacher stress, certain work-related stressors such as role ambiguity and role conflict have shown consistent associations with decreased job performance, job dissatisfaction and mental ill-health [5–7]. Occupational stress and mental health-related difficulties experienced by teachers have been found to influence the growing teacher attrition within school settings [8,9]. Consequently, it is not surprising that prior research has focused on individual differences in the correlates of role stressors, health and well-being outcomes. Accordingly, several studies
have emphasized the role of mediating and moderating variables in the stressor–strain relationship [10–12]. Mayer and Salovey’s (1997) construct of emotional intelligence (EI) has been found to be a major personal resource in the workplace. Four emotional abilities are interactively involved in EI: perceiving emotions, using emotions, understanding emotions and regulating one’s own and others’ emotions. In particular, the emotionregulation ability (ERA) has been proposed as crucial for EI because it is robustly associated with mental health and well-being indicators [13–16]. Similarly, ERA has been suggested as a buffer that might reduce the harmful consequences of stress and alleviate mental health-related difficulties [14,15,17]. Consistent with this approach, the work-related stressors associated with teaching tasks might cause emotionally adverse reactions in teachers over time, thereby increasing the risk of
© The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society of Occupational Medicine. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: [email protected]
Page 2 of 6 OCCUPATIONAL MEDICINE
mental ill-health [2–6]. Nevertheless, emotional abilities such as ERA might modify the manner in which teachers view and react to everyday stressful events, thereby helping alleviate psychological symptoms [17,18]. Hence, an important question that might be raised in this field is to what extent does ERA relate to role stress and teachers’ mental health. In this sense, the theoretical underpinnings of the ERA construct suggest its influence on teachers’ mental health indicators above and beyond the influence of classic work-related stressors such as role ambiguity and role conflict [14,15]. Taking into consideration prior research examining ERA, work-related stressors and mental health indicators, we investigated the following hypotheses: (i) high role ambiguity and role conflict will be associated with high scores in depression, anxiety and stress symptomatology; (ii) greater ERA will be related to low role ambiguity, role conflict, depression, anxiety and stress; (iii) high levels of ERA will have a significant influence on teachers’ mental health, independent of the effect of role ambiguity/conflict and (iv) ERA and role/ambiguity/conflict will interact in predicting depression, anxiety and stress symptoms. The aim of our study was 3-fold. Firstly, we aimed to examine the associations between role stressors, ERA and mental health indicators in a teacher sample. Secondly, we wanted to determine the contribution of role ambiguity and role conflict levels to teachers’ depression, anxiety and stress. In addition, we examined whether the inclusion of ERA would significantly add a predictive model of teachers’ mental health, beyond what may be accounted for by role ambiguity and role conflict. Finally, we examined if the interaction of role ambiguity/role conflict with ERA would significantly add to the prediction of depression, anxiety and stress.
Methods Participants were recruited with the help of psychology students at the University of Malaga. These students were instructed on administration of the questionnaire by the investigators. Later, they contacted different school centres and asked teaching professionals whether they would participate in a research study on the associations between job factors and occupational well-being. Therefore, an incidental sampling was taken based on teachers who were willing to participate in our study. Around 900 teachers from several centres located in southern Spain (Malaga) were contacted.The self-administered questionnaires were in paper-and-pencil format with written instructions. To assure anonymity, no identifying information was requested. Participants were fully informed about the voluntary basis of their participation and received no financial compensation. Questionnaires were completed either at home or in small groups under the supervision of a research assistant. Completing the
surveys lasted 20 min on average. Once the questionnaires were completed, the students returned them to the research staff for statistical processing. Questionnaires included measures of socio-demographic variables along with the Spanish versions of the Role Stress Scale (RSS), the emotion management subscale of the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Scale (MSCEIT) and the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS). With respect to our study variables, we evaluated role ambiguity and role conflict with the Spanish version of the RSS [19,20]. These subscales consist of 13 items using a Likert-type scale with ‘1 = totally disagree’ to ‘7 = totally agree’. Examples of the items are ‘My authority matches the responsibilities assigned to me’ and ‘I often get myself involved in situations in which there are conflicting requirements’. In our study, Cronbach’s α for role ambiguity was 0.81 and for role conflict was 0.84. We assessed ERA with the Spanish version of the MSCEIT [21,22]. The emotion regulation subscale of the MSCEIT evaluates both intrapersonal and interpersonal emotion regulation abilities through 29 items including emotion management and emotional relationships tasks. Participants are required to judge the actions that are most effective in each situation. In this study, split-half reliability for the Spanish version of the subscale was 0.85. To measure mental health outcomes, we used the Spanish version of the DASS [23,24]. This 21-item instrument assesses the negative emotional states of depression, anxiety and stress in the past week with a Likert-type scale, with ‘0 = did not apply to me at all’ to ‘3 = applied to me very much, or most of the time’. Examples of the items are ‘I couldn’t seem to experience any positive feelings at all’ and ‘I felt I was close to panic’. Scores on these three subscales were coded following standard procedure, with scores coded so that higher scores indicated poorer mental health. Cronbach’s α for the depression, anxiety and stress subscales were 0.85, 0.85 and 0.88, respectively. Teaching level was coded by location (elementary school, primary school, secondary school, university or non-specified). Additional covariates included age, and teaching experience (coded as continuous variables) and gender (categorical). Initial analyses were performed by calculating means, standard deviations and ranges for the aggregate scales from the questionnaire data. Bivariate Pearson correlations between our study variables were calculated in a zeroorder correlation matrix. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses were then constructed using depression, anxiety and stress as dependent variables. These analyses were conducted in order to examine the main effects of role ambiguity and role conflict, the incremental validity of ERA and the potential interaction of these variables in the prediction of depression, anxiety and stress. This method allows examination of the increment in R2 from addition of another predictor variable into the regression equation,
S. MÉRIDA-LÓPEZ ET AL.: EMOTION-REGULATION ABILITY AND TEACHERS’ MENTAL HEALTH Page 3 of 6
and determination of whether the added variable explains additional variance not explained by measures previously entered. It this case, it allows comparison of ERA against measures of other constructs such as role ambiguity/ conflict in order to examine the incremental validity of ERA in the prediction of psychological symptomatology. Results were expressed as unstandardized and standardized linear regression coefficients with 95% confidence intervals. Analyses were performed using IBM SPSS Statistics v.24.0. The study protocol was approved as part of the project PSI2012-38813 by the Research Ethics Committee of the University of Malaga.
Results Approximately 40% of the teachers contacted were willing to complete the questionnaires (n = 352). The responses provided by 16 participants (4%) were removed from the study due to missing data. Hence, the final sample consisted of 336 teachers (185 female, 151 male) representing elementary teachers (4%), intermediate teachers (23%), secondary teachers (27%), university teachers (22%) and teachers who did not report the grade level they taught (24%). The mean age of the sample was 43 years (SD = 10.02) and ranged from 22 to 68. Teaching experience was assessed in months and ranged from 6 months to 46 years. Descriptive statistics from the aggregated questionnaire responses are shown in Table 1. Table 2 shows Pearson correlations between the study variables. Role ambiguity and role conflict were both significantly and positively correlated with the outcome variables depression, anxiety
and stress. ERA was significantly and negatively associated with both role ambiguity (r = −0.20) and role conflict (r = −0.22), whilst also significantly and negatively correlated with depression, anxiety and stress. Preliminary analyses indicated no significant gender or teaching level differences in the main outcome variables, so these socio-demographic factors were not included in regression analyses. However, teachers’ age and teaching experience showed significant associations with anxious symptoms (r = −0.18, P
