{"doi":"10.1017/dmp.2023.231","title":"Just as Essential: The Mental Health of Educators During the COVID-19 Pandemic","abstract":"Abstract Objective: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic deleteriously impacted physical and mental health. In the summer of 2020, return-to-learn plans were enacted, including virtual, hybrid, and in-person plans, impacting educators and students. We examined (1) how return-to-learn plan was related to depressive and social anxiety symptoms among educators and (2) how psychological flexibility related to symptoms. Methods: Educators ( N = 853) completed a survey via Qualtrics that assessed internalizing symptoms, psychological flexibility, and occupational characteristics. Two one-way analyses of variance (ANOVAs) examined between-group differences in return-to-learn plans across depression and social anxiety. Two hierarchical linear regressions examined the relation between psychological flexibility components and depressive and social anxiety symptoms. Results: Median T -scores were well above the national normative means for General Depression (median T -score: 81) and Social Anxiety (median T -score: 67). There were no significant differences between reopening plans in general depression nor social anxiety T -scores. Psychological flexibility accounted for 33% of the variance in depressive symptoms and 24% of the variance in social anxiety symptoms. Conclusions: Results indicated high levels of psychiatric symptoms among educators during COVID-19, and psychological flexibility was associated with lower symptoms. Addressing educator mental health is of utmost importance in future research.","journal":"Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness","year":2024,"id":436049,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":11,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9608,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":277507,"name":"Manny S. Stegall","orcid":"0000-0002-0856-4586","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":881415,"name":"Zoe Sirotiak","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1244146,"name":"Felipe Herrmann","orcid":"0000-0002-6945-6810","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":756434,"name":"Emily B.K. Thomas","orcid":"0000-0002-0416-1157","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1244145,"name":"Alyssa Schneider","orcid":"0000-0003-0152-4896","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":71,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:00:12.706156Z","pmid":"38234124","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}