Health assessment of portuguese teachers: The Teacher’s Health Questionnaire

Abstract

In the last decades we have witnessed a deterioration of teacher’s health, which affected teachers and the school as an organization. This study aimed to evaluate the health of Portuguese teachers through the “Teacher’s Health Questionnaire”, in a sample of 5009 teachers. The results of the factor analysis supported a five-factor structure (professional well-being, exhaustion, cognitive disorders, musculoskeletal disorders, and voice alterations), with good fit indexes that supported the quality of the model with five-correlated factors (model 2). The results indicate that more than half of teachers have health problems. Those from public education, 1^st cycle, feminine gender, with more than 50 years and 21 or more years of service are those that present less well-being and more health loss. Cluster analysis provided a solution of three groups: high, medium, and low health. The results and their individual and organizational implications are discussed, as well as guidelines for future research.