Recent literature indicates teachers experience considerable stress in the workplace, and that such stress is associated with an increased frequency of physical illnesses and somatic complaints. This study was conducted to identify the relationship between reported levels of stress and somatic complaints and selected illnesses. The Maslach Burnout Inventory and the Teacher Somatic Complaints and Illness Inventory were distributed to 428 teachers in public schools in Southern Illinois. The MBI yields data allowing classification of teachers into two groups according to degrees of work related stress. A discriminant analysis was performed to examine the ability to discriminate between these groups based on their reported patterns of somatic complaints and illnesses. More than 11% of those responding to the study were classified as burned out according to conservative criteria for classification. The conclusion that burnout represents a health risk to teachers in this study has implications for school health personnel. Since school health personnel have experience in educating people about physiological and psychological factors that threaten health, and have experience in motivating individuals to take positive action regarding their health, they can provide teachers with information and skills to cope with occupational stress.

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This study was designed to estimate the relationship between teachers' somatic complaints and illnesses and their self-reported job-related stresses. 79% of the secondary Catholic school teachers in Central Ohio were classified into one of two groups based upon their scores on the Maslach Burnout Inventory. Teachers could be correctly classified as burned out or not 91% of the time when utilizing 24 somatic complaints as discriminating variables. Burnout seemed to represent a potential health risk to these teachers.

There is evidence that the original Maslach Burnout Inventory subscales may be improved by tailoring the factor structure and norms for individual professions within the original group. To determine the factor structures of the original 25-item inventory for a homogeneous population of 710 public school teachers from two states data were factor analyzed using principal factoring with iteration. The resulting factor structure was consistent with the original factor structure scaling; and norms specific for analyzing teachers' scores are reported.

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