Relationship between burnout and circadian typology and sleep habits in Japanese nursery school and kindergarten teachers

There have been few studies on the relationship between diurnal rhythms & sleep habits and the burnout of teachers of young children attending nursery schools and kindergarten. This study aims to clarify this relationship with a questionnaire. Integrated questionnaire was given to 272 teachers who worked at 10 nursery schools founded by Kochi city and one kindergarten affiliated with the Facuty of Education, Kochi University. Responses were recieved from 220 teachers (response rate: 80.8%). The integrated questionnaire included Diurnal Type Scale (DTS), questions on sleep hatits, questions on lighting conditions, and the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI). There was no correlative relationship between MBI and DTS. However, the total score for three questions on morning phase ("morning scores") among the DTS was significantly negatively correlated with MBI (waking up later related to higher burnout score; p=0.001). A significantly positive correlation was observed between MBI and three questions scores related to evening phase ("evening scores") (earlier bed time related higher burnout scores; p=0.001). This opposite direction of phase shift at night and in the morning can increase sleep hours. As a physiological view point, a high level of burnout may result in a longer duration of sleep as one homeostatic response.