Communication Patterns and Stress in the Preschool: an Observational Study

ABSTRACT

The study included 12 preschool departments, with two teachers in six departments characterised by high levels of stress and burnout and two teachers in six departments characterised by low levels of stress and burnout. A total of 24 females with a mean age of 43.5 years participated in the study. The teachers rated stress, fatigue, work demands and work burnout using different questionnaires. Cortisol samples were collected at wake up, one hour after wake up, at 11:00 am and at 09:00 pm. An observation study was conducted to create an overview of the communication patterns between the children and the personnel during different time periods. Significant differences between the two groups of teachers were observed regarding the organisation of the work and family situation. The high-stress teachers had more communications from colleagues than low-stress teachers, spent more time on pedagogical planning and had young children at home. These results support the view that the organisation is a central factor regarding stress experienced by preschool teachers.

KEYWORDS:

• Preschool
• stress
• communication
• organisation

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Fredrik Sjödin http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1172-208X

Gregory Neely http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2264-6761

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by AFA Försäkring [Grant Number 070117].