A cognitive-behavioral approach to teacher burnout: A randomized controlled trial of a group therapy program

ABSTRACT

Background and Objectives:

As a well-known phenomenon with significant social, biological, and psychological impacts, burnout syndrome has been viewed and treated from different therapeutic perspectives. However, few studies have evaluated interventions to prevent and alleviate teacher burnout.

Design:

This study comprised a randomized controlled trial (RCT) of a group-based cognitive–behavioral therapy (CBT) program for teacher burnout, with assessments at pre-treatment, post-treatment, and 6-month follow-up.

Methods:

The Maslach Burnout Inventory-Educators Survey (MBI-ES) was administered to 242 English language teachers with diverse professional profiles in Iran. Of these, 62 teachers with burnout symptoms were randomly assigned to either a group-based eight-week CBT treatment program or a waiting list control condition.

Results:

The results of a series of mixed factorial ANOVAs demonstrated significantly greater improvements for the treatment compared to the control condition on the total score and three subscales of the MBI-ES (teachers’ emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment) at post-treatment, with treatment effects maintained at 6-month follow-up.

Conclusions:

This CBT intervention has promise for supporting teachers in stressful occupational conditions and reducing their burnout.

KEYWORDS:

• Teacher burnout
• cognitive-behavioral therapy
• group therapy
• cognitive restructuring techniques

Acknowledgement

We would like to express our sincerest gratitude to Dr. Ghasemi, Dr. Tafakkor, and Dr. Ahmadi for their assistance with the sessions and data collection. We also thanks the trainers and the teachers who participated in the present study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethics approval

We further confirm that any aspect of the work covered in this manuscript that has involved human patients has been conducted with the ethical approval of all relevant bodies and that such approvals are acknowledged within the manuscript.

All procedures performed in this study involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Additional information

Funding

No funding was received for this work.