How is the mental health of teachers faring? A 10-year follow-up study of depressive symptoms and job dissatisfaction in the CONSTANCES cohort.

Abstract

Objectives: Teachers' mental health, an important asset for society, may be impacted by security or health crises alongside more structural changes. Our primary aim was to assess 2012-2022 trends in depressive symptoms among French teachers compared to similar employees. We further examined concomitant trends in job dissatisfaction.

Methods: Within the ongoing French national CONSTANCES cohort, depressive symptoms were regularly assessed (up to four times between 2012 and 2022) using the Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression scale (CES-D, score 0-60). We used mixed models adjusted for sociodemographic factors to estimate mean parameters (95% CI) of CES-D variations between 2012 and 2022 among teachers (n=15 022) compared with other intermediate or managerial/professional occupations (n=21 361). We similarly studied changes in job dissatisfaction (score 1-8) from 2018 (first occurrence in questionnaires) to 2022.

Results: In 2012, teachers' CES-D was slightly lower on average compared with that of non-teachers (-0.66 point (-1.19 to -0.12)), but tended to increase more rapidly over the decade, particularly in the years concomitant to the COVID-19 pandemic (+0.14 point/year (0.01 to 0.27)). By 2022, the gap had closed. Job dissatisfaction followed a somewhat different pattern: slightly lower among teachers in 2018, it increased at first more rapidly compared with non-teachers, but then stabilised, in parallel with the waning of the pandemic.

Conclusions: Our study highlights unfavourable long-term trends in the mental well-being of French teachers. Although clinical changes at individual levels would be mostly imperceptible, our findings concern a large population of key professionals, suggesting their growing needs for mental health support in the long run.