Negative stress among pedagogical workers in preschool institutions

Experiencing stress and coping with stress is one of the most essential factors of mental health and efficiency both in private lives and at work. Higher and higher expectations of society, economic crisis, constant changes in social and individual sphere present a challenge also in the pedagogical work of professional workers in pre-school institutions. The pedagogical workers in pre-school institutions are often exposed to a much bigger stress than they are capable to cope with. Stress which goes on for a longer period of time or it repeats on and on can lead to bad mental state of an individual and it increases risks of different diseases and disorders which can also lead to a lesser efficiency at work and worse quality of life. Not being able to manage the stress in the process of the pedagogical work can lead to improper and imbalanced reactions of pedagogical workers in important situations. If the pedagogical worker is not able to manage the stress, his actions in the educational process are not as good as they should be and that can in some extreme examples have bad influence on the psychological development of a child and it is also bad for the mental health of the professional worker. The main goal of the research was to scope the opinion of the pedagogical workers in pre-school institutions about their mental health with focus on stress– experiencing the stress, causes of stress and coping with stress at work. We made a quantitative analyse of the results and we found out that most of the pedagogical workers engaged in the inquiry estimate both their health and their mental health as good. The negative stress at work has not increased comparing to the research we did in 2008, but it also has not reduced. We propose that some actions are taken in order to reduce the negative stress at work. 78 % of the pedagogical workers feel stress and pressure because of the charges at work. 38 % of the pedagogical workers are in stress because of the bad relationships among co-workers. 36 % of the pedagogical workers are in stress or under big pressure every day or often, 14,8 % of the workers are at the edge of stressful behaviour while they hardly manage to cope the stress. We found out that the most frequent and the most powerful stressors among the pedagogical workers engaged in the inquiry are: pedagogical work that includes work with restless and more demanding children; dealing with parents who exceedingly interfere in professional matters; conflicts among co-workers; too many children in groups (according to the space they have). Two more stressors were exposed: not being able to affect the management decisions and conflicts with parents. An intention to leave the pedagogical work in pre-school institutions is expressed at the pedagogical workers that see their work as very stressful. 23 % of the pedagogical workers engaged in the inquiry would leave their pedagogical career if they found another employment. We have checked the connection and mutual influence of the years of employment in pre-school institutions and the evaluation of stress at work. We found out that the years of employment do not have an influence on the evaluation of stress at work. We can say that experiencing stress at work is high or strong for all the professional workers regardless of the years the pedagogical workers spent in the pedagogical profession. There are other factors that influence the professional workers, not the years of employment. The research results show that stress managing programs for the professional workers in pre-school institutions are necessary and needed. The professional workers would attend them, especially if they were performed during their work time (e.g. during their break)