Burnout in Teachers: The Role of Emotion Regulation, Empathy, and Educational Level Taught

This study investigates the relationship between emotion regulation (ER) difficulties, empathy, and burnout among teachers from different educational levels. The sample comprised 131 Portuguese teachers (72.5% women; M age = 50.54, SD = 9.15) from various levels of education. The findings revealed that ER difficulties were significantly associated with higher levels of personal, work-related, and student-relationship burnout, with empathic distress partially mediating these relationships. The level of education taught moderated the association between ER difficulties and cognitive empathy, with this association being significant only for teachers from secondary education. Teachers who struggled with regulating their emotions exhibited higher levels of empathic concern (regardless of educational level taught) and lower levels of cognitive empathy (only for secondary teachers), which in turn contributed to higher levels of burnout (especially work-related and student-relationship levels of burnout). These results suggest that teachers from secondary education may face complex emotional and cognitive challenges, likely due to the increased demands posed by adolescent students.