Introduction

Violence suffered by teachers at school and their working in an unhealthy environment can lead to situations of constant stress and great job dissatisfaction.¹ Teachers who are victims of acts of violence undergo behavior changes as a result of the emotional toll and become unable to teach efficiently. Emotional and psychiatric problems are common among teachers who suffer violence as they constantly feel insecure in the classroom.²

Overcrowded classrooms and teachers being unprepared to work in situations of conflict contribute to their vulnerability.³ Furthermore, violence can be related to the teacher being responsible for assessing students’ performance and students being dissatisfied with this process and with the result of their assessment, as well as students having access to firearms or sharp objects.⁴

Some 80% of three thousand teachers interviewed via a national telephone survey in the United States in 2010 reported having suffered some kind of violence, and 44% stated having being victims of physical violence.⁵ In South Korea in 2010, one third of one thousand teachers interviewed had been threatened verbally or suffered aggressiveness or abuse from students in the two preceding years. Victims of violence showed difficulties in personal relationships and in their relationship with students, in addition to low self-esteem and fear.⁶

A systematic review of 24 quantitative Brazilian studies conducted between 2002 and 2013 found that the most reported forms of violence against teachers were verbal insults, sexual harassment and violence involving property.⁷ Physical violence was reported by one in every twelve physical education teachers in the Brazilian state of Paraná in 2013.⁸

Aggression and violations occurring in schools are difficult to monitor epidemiologically, which can be explained by low use of reporting mechanisms by teaching establishments and by such violations not being recognized as violent acts that should be reported.⁹

The majority of studies involving teachers investigate their perception of situations of conflict and violence,^7,8,10-12 but research into acts of violence suffered by teachers when doing their job is still scarce. More studies are needed about violence in everyday school life and about the diverse forms of violence and diverse actors involved in the process, in order to provide information to support the establishment of strategies for responding to violence at school.

In view of the relevance of the theme for public health and the impact of cases of aggression and crime at school on students and teachers, the object of this study was to analyze prevalence of violence and associated factors against high school teachers in Teresina, Piauí, Brazil.

Methods

Results

Of the total of teachers working at the 24 schools selected, 279 (55.8%) agreed to take part in the study and returned the completed questionnaires. The majority of the teachers were male (58.1%), were up to 40 years old (58.5%), worked in schools in the Center/North region (43.0%), worked at more than one school (75.9%), had graduated from public higher education institutions (97.5%) and were postgraduates (69.1%). On average, teachers had been teaching for 13.1±7.8 years (Table 1).

Violence at school was reported by 54.8% (95%CI 48.8;60.7) of teachers. Verbal insults were the most frequent form (39.4%; 95%CI 33.7;45.4), followed by pressure to benefit a student against their will (26.9%; 95%CI 21.8;32.6), sexual harassment (15.4%; 95%CI 11.5;20.3), intimidation with a firearm or other weapon (2.2%; 95%CI 0.8;4.8) and physical violence (1.4%; 95%CI 0.5;3.99) (Figure 1).

Figure 1 - Prevalence and 95% confidence interval of violence against public and private high school teachers in Teresina, Piauí, 2016 (n=279) 

Schools located in the Eastern region (PR=1.65; 95%CI 1.14;2.39) or Southern region (PR=1.48; 95%CI 1.05;2.08) had positive association with violence, compared to schools in the Center/North region (Table 2). Having been the target of verbal insults was positively associated with working in public schools (PR=1.45; 95%CI 1.00;2.11) and with schools in the Eastern region (PR=1.85; 95%CI 1.17;2.93) and Southern region (PR=1.59; 95%CI 1.05;2.41; Table 3), compared to schools in the Center/North region. Working at just one school was negatively associated with sexual harassment (PR=0.93; 95%CI 0.86;0.99; Table 4).

The immunobiological products with the highest number of wasted doses were hepatitis B vaccine, diphtheria and tetanus adsorbed vaccine/adult (dT), diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis adsorbed vaccine (DTP), oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV) and measles, mumps and rubella vaccine (MMR), probably because these vaccines are provided in multidose vials.

The mean reason for physical waste was electric power shortage (54.9%), followed by the main power switch being turned off (10.6%), equipment-related problems (9.2%), refrigerator being unplugged (7.7%), refrigerator door left open (6.3%) and forgetting to put vaccines in the refrigerator (4.7%), among others (Figure 1).

Discussion

Violence at school was reported by over half of Teresina’s high school teachers in 2016, with verbal insults being the most frequent form of violence. Working in public schools favored occurrence of verbal insults, and being male was positively associated with sexual harassment. Teachers who worked at schools located in the central regions of the city and who worked at just one school were less exposed to situations of sexual harassment in the school environment.

Low teacher uptake with regard to participating in the study compromises the external validity of the findings. Despite have visited each school five times, the data collection method, which allowed the possibility of answering the questionnaire at home, may have caused participant loss and selection bias. The results are also subject to information bias, due to the complexity of the issue and possible fear of retaliation in the work environment in the event of participants revealing situations that should be officially reported.

Violence prevalence was found to be lower than that found in previous studies. This may be attributable to possible selection and information bias. In addition, anonymous studies show higher rates of school violence, principally when teachers fear retaliation or judgment.⁵ A national study conducted In the United States in 2009, found that 80% of teachers reported some kind of victimization at school, whether from students, parents or other education professionals in the school environment.⁵ A cross-sectional study conducted in the Brazilian state of Pernambuco in 2013 with 525 municipal school teachers, revealed 42.9% prevalence of verbal threats and 22.9% prevalence of physical violence, perpetrated mainly by students.²

Verbal insults were the kind of violence most reported by teachers, principally among public school teachers. Occurrence of this type of violence was most frequent in a descriptive study conducted in South Korea in 2012,⁶ and also in a cross-sectional study conducted in Brazil in 2013, in which the authors highlighted that teachers attribute verbal abuse to their being underrated in the classroom.⁸ Young people frequently use foul language and, in a setting in which teachers are underrated and their role in the classroom is disrespected, student may have recourse to verbal abuse in order to offend teachers.⁴ Verbal violence can also be related to the constant climate of conflicts caused by a school routine that does not enable students and teachers to listen democratically.¹²

Sexual harassment was most frequent among male teachers. In a national study in the United States which assessed national elementary school and high school data, sexual harassment was most common among male teachers in the majority of grades in which the study was conducted.¹⁶ In general, male teachers get more involved in situations involving conflicts between students and this makes them more vulnerable to situations of violence; moreover, female teachers feel more intimidated or fear being judged if they report cases of harassment.⁵

Teaching at just one school was negatively associated with sexual harassment. Similar results were found by other Brazilian studies conducted in 2011⁴ and 2013⁸ in the state of Paraná. In the first study, physical violence was associated with the fact of teachers working at two schools and, in the second study, association was found between the fact of teachers feeling unsecure in some part of the school and working at more than one school. Long working hours, multiple workplaces and temporary employment contracts make teachers more vulnerable to situations of violence, as their ties with the institution and their decision-making power are reduced.^4,8

Teachers up to 40 years old and who had worked for less time as teachers comprised the most victimized age group. These facts corroborate a study conducted in Brazil in 2013, in which teachers up to 40 years old suffered more violence, while this was not found among older teachers and those with more classroom experience.⁸ Younger education professionals are generally more willing to face precarious working conditions until they manage to get a stable career with a better salary, in addition to their working at several schools and thus being more exposed to violence. It is believed that older and more experienced teachers are able to deal better with conflict situations.^8,17

Violence was found to be less frequent in central regions of the city and regions with lower crime rates. Perceived sensation of insecurity in a neighborhood is directly related to that perceived at school. Violent regions and communities also have high school violence prevalence rates.^8,18 Moreover, in general schools located in distant and hard to reach regions with high rates of violence frequently have vacant teaching positions, which are an option for teachers wishing to work an additional shift in order to increase their income.⁸ In Teresina, schools with lower indicators of violence against teachers are located in the Center/North and Southeast regions of the city, where commerce is intense and violent crime rates are lower. The region with the highest frequency of violence against teachers was the same region where urban violence rates increased between 2006 and 2016.¹⁹

The findings of these studies can be useful for targeting health actions and policies aimed at preventing violence against teachers in the school environment. Such initiatives need to reach teachers who work in public schools in poorer outskirt regions and regions with high indicators of urban violence, who teach at more than one school and who are male.