Schoolteachers' Resilience Does but Self-Efficacy Does Not Mediate the Influence of Stress and Anxiety Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic on Depression and Subjective Well-Being

Inn-Kyu Cho; Jihoon Lee; Kyumin Kim; Joohee Lee; Sangha Lee; Soyoung Yoo; Sooyeon Suh; Seockhoon Chung

doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2021.756195

Schoolteachers' Resilience Does but Self-Efficacy Does Not Mediate the Influence of Stress and Anxiety Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic on Depression and Subjective Well-Being

Front Psychiatry. 2021 Oct 6:12:756195. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2021.756195. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Inn-Kyu Cho¹, Jihoon Lee¹, Kyumin Kim¹, Joohee Lee¹, Sangha Lee², Soyoung Yoo³, Sooyeon Suh⁴, Seockhoon Chung¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychiatry, Asan Medical Center, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Seoul, South Korea.
² Department of Convergence Medicine, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Seoul, South Korea.
³ Department of Psychiatry, Ajou University School of Medicine, Suwon, South Korea.
⁴ Department of Psychology, Sungshin Women's University, Seoul, South Korea.

Abstract

Objectives: In the current coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, schoolteachers experience stress from addressing students or performing school tasks that may result in burnout. This study aimed to observe whether teachers' stress and anxiety due to the pandemic can influence their depression or psychological well-being and examine whether their resilience or self-efficacy mediates this association. Methods: During March 4-15, 2021, 400 teachers participated and responded voluntarily to an online survey that included the Stress and Anxiety to Viral Epidemics-9 items (SAVE-9), the Teacher-Efficacy Scale, the Brief Resilience Scale (BRS), the WHO-5 Well-Being Index, and the Patients Health Questionnaire-9 items. Results: High psychological well-being of teachers in COVID-19 pandemic era was expected by a low SAVE-9 score (aOR = 0.95; 95% CI, 0.91-0.99), a high level of self-efficacy (aOR = 1.03; 95% CI, 1.01-1.06), and a high BRS score (aOR = 1.18; 95% CI, 1.10-1.27). Moreover, teachers' resilience mediated the effects of stress and anxiety from the COVID-19 pandemic on their subjective well-being or depression. Conclusions: Schoolteachers' subjective well-being and depression were influenced by high levels of stress and anxiety of the viral epidemic, and their resilience mediated this relationship in this COVID-19 pandemic era.

Keywords: COVID-19; anxiety; psychology; stress; teacher.