Depression Levels of the Elementary School Teachers

The aim of this research is to examine depression levels of the elementary school teachers in terms of the following variables: gender, age, marital status, occupational seniority, contractual-tenured-paid working, working in combined or independent classrooms, number of students in the classroom, place of duty, occupational acceptance, occupational satisfaction and finding the occupation appropriate to one's personality.Universe of the study is composed of all teachers who are working in 186 city center elementary schools and village schools managed under city administration in Erzurum province of Turkey. Sample of the study is composed of 194 classroom teachers who are working in 40 elementary schools that were randomly selected among the schools in the universe of the study. Personal Information Form and the “Beck Depression Inventory” were used as data collection instruments in the research. In view of these findings, no significant difference was observed among the depression levels of the elementary school teachers in terms of gender, age, occupational seniority, marital status, types of classrooms where they teach, their place of duty and type of employment. It was observed that there was a significant difference among the depression levels of the elementary school teachers in terms of number of students in the classrooms, occupational acceptance, occupational satisfaction and finding the occupation appropriate to one's personality.