Profiles of Italian preschool educators: younger teachers are at higher risk of psychological discomfort and burnout

Introduction: Recent research has emphasized that teachers are increasingly exposed to Burnout (prolonged and intense occupational distress with psycho-physical and emotional exhaustion, lack of motivation and a sense of ineffectiveness) due to specific properties of the education profession: close interaction between practitioner and users, intense emotional involvement and the increased socio-cultural context's pressures and demands on the school. This study aims to identify subgroups of preschool educators - a population still under-researched - based on socio-demographic and occupational factors and to determine how these subgroups are related to psychological variables (such as burnout, anxiety and alexithymia). Methods: 143 Italian preschool educators (females n = 138), aged from 20 to 60 years and older completed an online survey comprising the following tools: Maslach Burnout Inventory; State-Trait Anxiety Inventory Y-form; Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20); socio-demographic and occupational data sheet. A latent class analysis was applied to a set of indicators related to demographics (sex, age, degree) and job-related factors (job position, seniority, time of employment, number of children per class) to identify distinct profiles of educators. MANOVA was used to examine the relationship between the class membership and levels of burnout, state anxiety and alexithymia. Results: Three classes with different patterns were identified: a class (C1) with a high prevalence of teachers with higher age (>51 years), greater professional experience (>21 years) and stable employment; a class (C2) with a high prevalence of teachers aged 31-50, mostly in an open-ended contract and full-time employment; and a class (C3) with a high prevalence of young teachers (aged 20-30), with low professional experience (<10 years) and precarious work. C3 exhibited significantly greater levels of state anxiety (compared to C1), alexithymia (compared to C2) and Depersonalization dimension of Burnout, that is the tendency to distancing from others within relationships (compared to C1 and C2). Discussion: The youngest group of teachers seems to be the one most at a risk of discomfort and burnout, probably due to the job insecurity, anxiety and concern for the future typical of the contemporary society.