Depression in preschool a problem for teachers.

• Position: Psychology - Brief article

Depression in preschool teachers is associated with behavioral problems ranging from aggression to sadness in children under the teachers' care, suggests a study published in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, which identified one contributing factor to this link: a poor-quality atmosphere in the child care setting that exists as a result of a teacher's depressive symptoms.

In this study, "teacher" refers to both classroom instructors and in-home child care providers. Researchers used data from a large national study that collected family information primarily from low-income, single-mother households. "We were interested in that sample because we thought that children of low-income single mothers might experience a more emotionally vulnerable home environment, and we wanted to see if the role of teachers affected their psychological health,"...