Mental health and burnout levels of early childhood education pedagogical teams in Chile

Fuentes Vilugrón, Gerardo; Baeza Vargas, Yasna; Fuentes Fuentes, Daniela; Ortiz Peña, Daniela; Rojas Estrada, Darlyn; Sandoval-Obando, Eduardo; Arriagada-Hernández, Carlos; Caamaño-Navarrete, Felipe; Etchegaray-Pezo, Paulo; Castellanos-Alvarenga, Luis Mario

doi:10.3389/feduc.2025.1680412

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Educ.

Sec. Teacher Education

Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2025.1680412

This article is part of the Research TopicThe Role of Teacher Emotion in EducationView all 4 articles

Mental health and burnout levels of early childhood education pedagogical teams in Chile

Provisionally accepted

Gerardo Fuentes Vilugrón^1*

Yasna Baeza Vargas¹

Daniela Fuentes Fuentes¹

Daniela Ortiz Peña¹

Darlyn Rojas Estrada¹

Eduardo Sandoval-Obando¹

Carlos Arriagada-Hernández¹

Felipe Caamaño-Navarrete¹

Paulo Etchegaray-Pezo²

Luis Mario Castellanos-Alvarenga³

¹Universidad Autónoma de Chile, Temuco, Chile
²Universidad Catolica de Temuco, Temuco, Chile
³Universidad Santo Tomas, Santiago, Chile

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Introduction. Mental health is a state of complete well-being that includes people's cognitive, affective, and behavioral aspects. This means that an individual with low levels of depression, anxiety, and stress can function optimally in their daily life, contributing to the community and enjoying and creating meaningful relationships with their peers and environment. The purpose of the study was to determine the levels of stress, anxiety, and depression along with the levels of burnout manifested by Chilean preschool education professionals. Method. A quantitative, non-experimental, correlational design was applied. A purposive sample of 560 preschool teachers and assistants participated. Data were collected using the Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21) and the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI). Analyses included descriptive and inferential statistics. Results. Participants exhibited low levels of stress, anxiety, and depression. However, emotional exhaustion and depersonalization showed positive correlations with all three mental health indicators. Conversely, personal accomplishment was negatively correlated with them. Structural equation modeling revealed that anxiety mediates the relationship between burnout and depressive symptoms, with emotional exhaustion having the greatest impact. Discussion. These findings underscore the importance of reinforcing psychological and socio-emotional support for preschool education teams. Strengthening professional well-being is critical not only for educators' health but also for enhancing the quality of early childhood education.

Keywords: early childhood education1, Mental health2, burnout3, stress4, anxiety5, depression6

Received: 06 Aug 2025; Accepted: 30 Sep 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Fuentes Vilugrón, Baeza Vargas, Fuentes Fuentes, Ortiz Peña, Rojas Estrada, Sandoval-Obando, Arriagada-Hernández, Caamaño-Navarrete, Etchegaray-Pezo and Castellanos-Alvarenga. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Gerardo Fuentes Vilugrón, gerardo.fuentes2@cloud.uautonoma.cl

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