Occupational Stress and Wellness among Italian Secondary School Teachers

As a part of a larger cross-cultural investigation (EUROTEACH) which involves 11 European countries and 2 182 secondary school teachers, two were the aims of the present study: (1) to examine the relationship between job conditions and wellness/health outcomes on a group of 169 Italian secondary school teachers, by using the Job Demand-Control-Support (JDCS) Model (Karasek and Theorell, 1990); (2) to analyse the differences with other European countries in the light of specific cultural differences.Controlling for age and gender, results of hierarchical regression indicated that job control and social support combine in different additive patterns with job demands to explain the well-being outcomes (job satisfaction, emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation, somatic complaints). The predictor's linearity check indicated that the job demands variable is curvilinearly associated both with emotional exhaustion (p < 0.005) and with somatic symptoms (p < 0.01). As compared to the average of the other European countries, on the positive side, the Italian teachers manifest both a higher degree of personal accomplishment and a lesser degree of depersonalisation; on the other hand, they claim a lesser degree of social support and a higher degree of somatic complaints.