Impact of the psychosocial aspects of work on the quality of life of teachers.

OBJECTIVE

To investigate the impact of psychosocial aspects on the quality of life of teachers from municipal schools in Natal, Brazil.

METHOD

descriptive study with a cross-sectional design and a sample of 242 elementary school teachers. We used the WHOQOL-bref to assess the quality of life as well as questions about the level of control and the psychological demand of work from the Job Content Questionnaire.

RESULTS

the overall evaluation of quality of life showed that the physical and environmental domains had the lowest mean scores. According to the psychosocial aspects, most of the subjects (67 individuals = 32.1%) were characterized as having active work (high demand and control), followed by 54 teachers (25.8%) with demanding work (high demand and little control). These two groups have shown to be more affected in the assessment of physical (p < 0.001), psychological (p < 0.001), and environment (p < 0.001) domains of quality of life.

CONCLUSIONS

Teachers who had tasks characterized as active and demanding were more affected in the quality of life domain. This finding suggests the need for greater investment in health-promotion policies among teachers.