The Effect of Inquiry-Based Stress Reduction on Teacher Burnout: A Controlled Trial
Open accessAbstract
Burnout is a well-known phenomenon with significant social, biological and economic costs. In particular, teacher burnout is associated with unfavorable mental health outcomes and economic costs due to reduced hours and teacher turnover. This study investigated the effect of an Inquiry-Based Stress Reduction (IBSR) cognitive-reframing program on teacher burnout using a quasi-experimental design. Fifty-three teachers participated in a prospective intervention with a passive control group. The intervention group completed a 12-week IBSR program with 4.5 h of weekly engagement. Relative to control, teachers in the intervention group showed greater improvements in emotional exhaustion (18.8 ± 5.2 to 15.9 ± 5.7 vs. 16.0 ± 4.8 to 17.4 ± 4.8; p = 0.01) and personal accomplishment (21.8 ± 5.0 to 24.6 ± 4.3 vs. 21.9 ± 4.5 to 22.8 ± 4.3; p = 0.04). Significant correlations were found between change in emotional exhaustion and negative affect (positive correlation; r = 0.32; p = 0.034) and between personal accomplishment and perceived stress (negative correlation; r = −0.451; p = 0.002). This study demonstrates the potential of IBSR to improve teacher well-being. Future randomized studies are needed to evaluate the causality of IBSR in reducing burnout among teachers and other high-stress workplaces.
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IBSR has been demonstrated to improve mental health and well-being in adults, including breast cancer survivors, the general population, and teachers.
“IBSR has been demonstrated to improve mental health and well-being in adults and may alleviate psychological and psychosocial symptoms of stuttering.”
From Inquiry based stress reduction (Ibsr) improves overall stuttering experience among adults who stutter: A randomized controlled trial (2021) · cites this paper as [40]
The Introduction (section 1; page unavailable) reports prior improvements on psychological and well-being scales, and the Discussion (section 4; page unavailable) reports improved burnout measures among teachers. The References list a study of breast cancer survivors, but the paper does not establish improvement in a general-population sample. Its teacher results concern burnout, not significant improvement across all mental-health measures. (LLM, conf=0.83)
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- Authors
- Schnaider-Levi, L., Ganz, A., Zafrani, K., Goldman, Z., Mitnik, I., Rolnik, B., & Lev-Ari, S.
- Affiliations
- Department of Health Promotion, School of Public Health, Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv 69978, Israel
- Stanford University (US)
- Begin High School, John Kennedy Street 8, Rosh Ha’Ayin 4852028, Israel
- Venue
- Brain Sciences
- Publisher
- MDPI AG
- Published
- 2020-07-21
- Volume
- 10
- Issue
- 7
- Pages
- 468
- ISSN
- 2076-3425 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC7407507
- OpenAlex
- W3042340177
- Cited by
- 30
- References
- 40
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 1
- FWCI
- 4.37
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Brain Sciences (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Stress and Burnout Research
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › Occupational Therapy › Occupational Health and Burnout
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Mindfulness and Compassion Interventions
- Keywords
- teacher burnout, cognitive reframing, emotional exhaustion, personal accomplishment, teacher well-being, perceived stress, negative affect, teacher mental health, stress reduction intervention
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