Assessing the general mental health of special educators of handicap and special needs children

Background: The handicap and disabilities among individuals are a global problem with high numbers among them. The study aimed to detect symptoms of psychological problems among special educators in governmental institutes of handicap children at Al-Najaf City. Methodology: A descriptive analytic study was conducted in governmental institutes of handicap children in Al-Najaf City. The study sample included all special needs teachers in governmental institutes (38 teachers) teachers who had a licensed to dealing with handicap children. The study instruments had two parts. First part included the demographic characteristics of teachers like age, gender, residence, faculty, academic year, and socioeconomic data. Second part had the general health questionnaire 12-items to detect their general mental health in non-psychiatric persons by self-reported. Result: The study revealed most of special educators are worked in Al-Noor institute for blindness (32%) from all educators are participated in the study and most of them are a female (81.2%) with aged more than 35 years old. The majority (73.68%) of general health state of special educators is a good general health and residual ratio about (26%) is rated as a poor general health state. Conclusion: The study concluded the number of special educators in government handicap institutes is a few and most of them are not specialist. About one third of educators were a female and their income was insufficient. Also, one quarter had a poor mental health so the study recommended to support and train them about how deal with stresses and other psychological problems.