ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Mental Health and Wellbeing in Education
From Burnout to Growth: The relationship between teachers' job satisfaction, wellbeing and mental health
Provisionally accepted
- 1L-Universita ta' Malta, Msida, Malta
- 2Universitas Mercatorum, Rome, Italy
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
In contrast to previous studies focused on the negative impact of teacher stress and burnout, recently there has been a shift towards processes which help to support teachers' wellbeing and mental health. The objective of the present study is to examine the status of the job satisfaction, wellbeing, and mental health of schoolteachers in Maltese schools and examine the interrelations between these key variables. A total of 351 primary and secondary school teachers completed an anonymous online survey on their mental health, wellbeing, and job satisfaction. The findings portray a mixed profile of teachers experiencing a moderate level of distress, but feeling connected and efficacious, and having mixed feelings about different aspects of their profession. Job satisfaction, particularly relationships with colleagues and nature of work, and sense of wellbeing, particularly connectedness, foster teachers' mental health and help to protect them against burnout and mental health issues. School connectedness appears to be one of the strongest health promoting and protective factors. On the other hand, young teachers with limited experience are the least satisfied and have lower levels of mental health and wellbeing, making them more at risk of burnout and attrition. Various recommendations are made on how to enhance the wellbeing and mental health of practicing teachers and make the profession more rewarding for early career teachers.
Keywords: teachers, job-satisfaction2, wellbeing3, self-efficacy4, connectedness5, mental health6
Received: 26 Sep 2025; Accepted: 11 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Cefai, Galea, Spiteri and Cavioni. 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: Carmel Cefai, carmel.cefai@um.edu.mt
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.