Prevalence of Burnout among Teachers during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Meta-Analysis

Abstract

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, many studies have found that there has been a lot of teacher overload. One of the additional burdens has been that they have had to teach online. In addition, when they returned to face-to-face classes, they had to follow all the hygiene rules so that the COVID-19 virus would not spread. It is therefore not surprising that, during this pandemic period, high levels of psychological symptoms have been reported among teachers. Among this symptomatology, burnout has been very frequent among teachers. Therefore, the aim of this study is to conduct a meta-analysis to determine the overall prevalence of burnout among teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic. For this purpose, a search was conducted for cross-sectional studies listed in PubMed from 1 December 2019 to 14 February 2022 that reported on the prevalence of burnout among teachers. A total of nine studies from eight different countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, and North and South America, were included in this study. The pooled prevalence of burnout among teachers was 52% (95% CI 33–71%), which is higher than burnout rates reported for health professionals. There was significant heterogeneity between studies (I2 = 99%, p-value < 0.001), and the prevalence of burnout was higher in women and school teachers (compared to university educators), and lower in American studies. This meta-analysis concludes that teachers worldwide experienced a high rate of burnout during the COVID-19 pandemic. This has implications not only for the teachers themselves, but also for the quality of the education they were able to provide. This education has an influence on the student population. The possible long-term effects are yet to be determined.