Protective factors for teachers’ work stress: psychoeducational programs based on self-efficacy and hope to reinforce personal resources

Teaching at school is subject to stress and tension, which in some cases can lead to pathological conditions and can also lead to the abandonment of the same profession. In literature, the work of the teacher is often associated with stress, so much so that it is often indicated as one of the jobs most exposed to this phenomenon. As a matter of fact, there are many different sources of stress. For example, teaching unmotivated students, dealing with educational changes, and unsatisfactory working conditions. Persistence over time can lead to a strong personal exhaustion and also to the perception of a decline in one's working abilities accompanied by high levels of fatigue and negative attitudes towards one's work. Starting from some personal resources such as self-efficacy and hope, this study analyses the correlation between these resources and stress in a sample of 95 primary and lower secondary school teachers and then proposes a possible psychoeducational intervention.