Mood, Physical, and Mental Load in Spanish Teachers of Urban School: The Role of Intensive or Split Shift

Psychosocial risk factors threaten the health of teachers, who are considered to be a group at high risk of suffering burnout syndrome. The objective of this study is to measure the levels of work satisfaction, burnout, engagement, emotional stability, fatigue, and mood of teachers, depending on their workday: intensive or split shift. A nonexperimental, descriptive-comparative research design is proposed for this study. A follow-up questionnaire has been developed to assess a teacher's levels of physical fatigue, mental fatigue, and mood at the beginning and end of the 9 days of work analyzed. The study sample consisted of 125 teachers (102 women and 23 men) with a mean age of 38.67 years (SD = 9.51) and 10.02 years of experience in teaching. The results show that the group of teachers working the traditional morning and afternoon shift present greater levels of physical and mental fatigue, worse mood, and less job satisfaction with supervision. However, there were no significant differences in levels of emotional stability, burnout, and engagement between the two groups of teachers. In short, it can be considered that the single morning shift generates higher levels of health among teachers.