Burnout syndrome and coping strategies in professors of public and private schools.

Abstract

The objective of this study was to verify if there is difference in the relation between the coping strategies in place and the scope of the burnout syndrome in public and private school teachers. The sample was made up of 81 teachers, 45 from public schools and 36 from private schools. The methods applied in this study were a questionnaire developed to raise demographic and professional data, the MBI – Maslach Burnout Inventory (Maslach and Jackson, 1986) to evaluate the burnout syndrome, and the Inventory of Coping Strategies (Folkman and Lazarus, 1985) to evaluate the coping methods. The results obtained, through the Pearson correlation proof, show differences in the strategies applied. For private school teachers, the more coping strategies were applied, the higher the emotional exhaustion and depersonalization rate; and the higher the acceptance of responsibility, the smaller the professional accomplishment rate. But for public school teachers, the more the withdrawal and escape strategy was used, the higher the emotional exhaustion. The depersonalization increases as the withdrawal strategy is more used. As for professional accomplishment, it was found that, the more withdrawal was applied, the smaller was the feeling that work is the source of professional accomplishment. The use of problem solving methods increases the proportion of professional accomplishment. The results point out to the need of making different interventions in the groups investigated.