Article
Health and safety conditions based on teacher education. An analysis from bibliometrics
106
Health and safety conditions based on teacher education. An analysis from
bibliometrics
Las condiciones en seguridad y salud basada en la formación docente. Un análisis desde la
bibliometría
Condições de saúde e segurança na formação de professores. Uma análise bibliométrica
Alba Biviana Montoya Rabelo
Student, Corporación Universitaria Minuto de Dios, Bogota, Colombia,
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9868-7522 amontoyarab@uniminuto.edu.co
Sandra Julieth Salamanca Reyes
Student, Corporación Universitaria Minuto de Dios, , Bogota, Colombia,
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5961-9954,
ssalamanca5@uniminuto.edu.co
Leidy Isabel Calderon Sierra
Master, Corporación Universitaria Minuto de Dios, , Bogota, Colombia,
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1056-901X, leidy.calderon@uniminuto.edu
Received May 2021 - Accepted September 2021
Revista Iberoamericana de la Educación
Vol - 4 No. 4, October - December 2021
e-ISSN: 2737-632x
Pgs 106-118
Abstract: The working conditions of the teaching profession constitute
physical and psychosocial risk factors, which directly and indirectly affect
professional performance and the significant increase in problems affecting
the health of this study population. This bibliometric analysis on health and
safety conditions in teachers is based on the analysis of 58 articles related to
the subject, extracted from a search in the following databases: Scopus,
Science Direct and Taylor & Francis. For the above, the range of publications
between 2012 and 2020 and the inclusion criteria were taken into account, the
articles were analyzed under the following aspects: (1) analysis of the year
and articles published, (2) analysis of authors, (3) country where the study
was conducted (4) country of affiliation of each author and (5) analysis of
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Health and safety conditions based on teacher education. An analysis from bibliometrics
107
journals where the articles were published. The scientific literature recognizes
the different problems and occupational risk factors to which workers
engaged in teaching and similar occupations are exposed, justifying the need
and importance of addressing and recognizing the aspects that allow the
promotion of health and the prevention of disease in this population.
Keywords: teaching personnel, Working conditions, blibliometrics, health
and safety.
Resumen: Las condiciones laborales de la profesión docente constituyen
factores de riesgo a nivel físico y psicosocial, las cuales inciden directa e
indirectamente en el desempeño profesional y el significativo aumento de los
problemas que afectan la salud en esta población en estudio. Este análisis
bibliométrico sobre condiciones de seguridad y salud en docentes se realiza a
partir del análisis de 58 artículos relacionados con la temática, extraídos de
una búsqueda en las bases de datos: Scopus, Science Direct y Taylor &
Francis. Para lo anterior se tuvo en cuenta el rango de publicaciones entre el
año 2012 y 2020 y los criterios de inclusión, los artículos fueron analizados
bajo los siguientes aspectos: (1) análisis del año y artículos publicados, (2)
análisis de autores, (3) país donde se realizó el estudio (4) País de filiación de
cada autor y (5) análisis de revistas en donde se publicaron los artículos.
Desde la literatura científica se reconocen los diferentes problemas y factores
de riesgo laborales a los que están expuestos los trabajadores que se dedican
al oficio de la docencia y similares, justificando la necesidad y la importancia
de atender y reconocer los aspectos que permitan la promoción de la salud y
la prevención de la enfermedad en esta población.
Palabras clave: personal docente, condiciones de trabajo, bibliometría, salud
y seguridad.
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Health and safety conditions based on teacher education. An analysis from bibliometrics
108
Resumo: As condições de trabalho da profissão docente constituem factores
de risco físicos e psicossociais, que afectam directa e indirectamente o
desempenho profissional e o aumento significativo de problemas que afectam
a saúde da população deste estudo. Esta análise bibliométrica das condições
de saúde e segurança nos professores baseia-se na análise de 58 artigos
relacionados com o tema, extraídos de uma pesquisa nas seguintes bases de
dados: Scopus, Science Direct e Taylor & Francis. Para o acima exposto, a
gama de publicações entre 2012 e 2020 e os critérios de inclusão foram tidos
em conta, os artigos foram analisados sob os seguintes aspectos: (1) análise
do ano e artigos publicados, (2) análise dos autores, (3) país onde o estudo foi
realizado (4) país de afiliação de cada autor e (5) análise dos periódicos onde
os artigos foram publicados. A partir da literatura científica, são
reconhecidos os diferentes problemas e factores de risco profissional a que os
trabalhadores da profissão docente e de profissões semelhantes estão
expostos, justificando a necessidade e a importância de atender e reconhecer
os aspectos que permitem a promoção da saúde e a prevenção de doenças
nesta população.
Palavras-chave: pessoal docente, condições de trabalho, bibliometria, saúde
e seguran
INTRODUCTION
Bibliometric tools contribute to research processes with different applied
methods, in order to analyze and study scientific activities based on statistical
and mathematical methods, achieving objectivity, measurement and
comparison of each of them. Given the current research boom and its high
cost, bibliometrics serves as a support for decision making, research direction
and with a measurable basis to designate the necessary economic resources
for research Dávila (2019).
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The significant increase in problems affecting mental health Seibt et al.,
(2005), the prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders (Ehsani et al., 2018; da
Silva Vitor et al., 2017; Constantino et al., 2019), voice-related problems
(Nazari et al., 2020; Cantor Cutiva et al., 2013; Sampaio et al., 2012; Giannini
et al., 2015) and the presence of Burnout syndrome (Pando-moreno, 2006;
Rodriguez et al., 2014; Wang et al., 2015; Ponce Díaz et al., 2014) are some
of the many conditions that have been studied in teachers, understanding the
interest for occupational health and safety, protection and prevention not only
of the mentioned problems, but also of the diversity of risk factors that can
affect these workers.
Constantino in a research conducted in Brazil, on musculoskeletal disorders
(MSD), analyzed the disability in teachers and the prevalence of MSD,
according to the data obtained 31.6% of teachers claim to have been
diagnosed with a musculoskeletal disease, mostly in the regions of the neck,
shoulders, lower back and upper back. Part of the research yields that
"teachers who engage in leisure time physical activity are protected from
MSDs in the same areas named above, compared to those who are inactive"
(2019 p. 43). Regarding the prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs)
in higher education teachers, shoulder and back pain were found to be the
common pattern of these conditions. However, neck pain and physical risk
factors have a higher percentage of incidence compared to other MSDs, elbow
pain despite not being as common has a prevalence of 3.5% (Mohan et al.,
2015, p. 243).
Poma et al. carried out an investigation in Peru with university teachers who
were teleworking for the Covid-19 emergency, the most prevalent MSDs
were mainly in the dorso-lumbar region (67.27%), the neck (64.55%),
followed by the shoulder (44.55%) and the wrist/hand (38.18%). The authors
associate pain in the dorsal-lumbar region and neck with prolonged postures
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typical of working hours, which include a working day of more than 10 hours
a day, 5 to 7 days a week. Several studies indicate that working more than
four hours in front of the computer generates symptoms in different segments
of the body, most of which become painful, indicating that teachers who are
teleworking are more exposed to developing MSDs (Poma, 2020). In
Colombia, the Ministry of Labor established as mandatory the occupational
health and safety management system as a logical and phased process that
aims to "anticipate, recognize, evaluate and control risks that may affect
health and safety" (occupational health and safety management system,
2020), of all work environments, including academic institutions, which are
of vital interest for the development of research processes in the knowledge
of the health status of teachers.
Based on the above, the following study conducts a bibliometric analysis of
studies that have been done on health and safety conditions in teachers, which
allow us to establish the importance given to this population. With the
information, the following aspects were analyzed: (1) analysis of the year and
articles published, (2) analysis of authors, (3) Authors who participated in the
publication of each article (4) Country of each author (5) journals and
publications and (6) Countries in which more journals were published.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
For the development of bibliometrics, original articles published in academic
journals indexed in the Scopus, Taylor & Francis and Science Direct
databases and addressing topics related to the study of safety and health
conditions in teachers were considered.
These documents were published in Spanish, Portuguese and English and
corresponded to research results articles, review articles and mini-reviews
found in the search carried out using Boolean operators "AND" "OR"
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Health and safety conditions based on teacher education. An analysis from bibliometrics
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between the categories ((teatching OR teachers) AND ("working conditions"
OR "work effects" OR "occupational diseases") AND ("occupational
health")).
Regarding the publication period, a total of 136 articles related to health and
safety conditions in teachers were identified. During the process of reading
the titles and abstracts, a total of 78 documents that did not meet the inclusion
criteria were excluded; this phase was important to determine and make the
decision to select the most relevant publications that were related to the
research topic and the previously defined inclusion criteria.
At the end of this phase, the remaining 58 articles were read, all of which had
terms related to the research topic and no document was excluded since they
met the inclusion criteria. The development of bibliometrics was carried out
through the analysis of the variables; year of publication, authors, authors'
countries of affiliation and journal information, the data were exported and
analyzed with Excel software.
RESULTS
The 58 articles selected for this research were published between 2012 and
2020, having as results the following publication data: from 2012 to 2014, 8
articles related to the research topic were published, in 2015 there were 16
published articles, and from 2016 to 2017 there was a decrease in publications
since only 12 articles were published, in 2018 5 articles were published, in
2019 there was an increase to 12 articles, ending in 2020 with 5 published
articles.
The 58 publications were written by 176 different authors of various
nationalities, 90.1% of the authors included in the bibliometrics have only one
publication, 4% have published two articles, and 2 authors; Mara Behlau from
the Federal University of São Paulo has 3 publications and Fabiana Zambon,
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a speech therapist with a doctorate in human communication disorders from
São Paulo, Brazil, has 4 publications. Regarding the authors' affiliation, we
found that Brazil is the country with the highest representation of authors with
37%, followed by the United Kingdom with 11%, 8% of authors belong to
Germany, ending with 6% belonging to Italy and Malaysia. Countries such as
China, Iran, Japan, Argentina, Colombia, among others, are represented by
authors who participated in some publication, see Figure 1.
Figure 1. Country of Affiliation
It is common that in scientific practice and in research processes, the different
works and contributions are made in collaboration with various authors, this
strengthens the richness and development of research methodology, allowing
for multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary work in the sciences. For this
bibliometrics, 87.9% of the articles included were written by at least 2 authors
and only 7 persons wrote individually 7 of the 58 articles included. Figure 4
shows the frequency of the articles according to the number of authors who
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participated in them, it is important to mention that 18.9% of the manuscripts
were developed by more than 5 authors.
The 58 articles included in this review were published by 29 different
journals, the one with the highest participation is Procedia - Social and
Behavioral Sciences, from the United Kingdom with 10 publications,
followed by Codas Brazilian journal with 9 publications and Cadernos de
Saúde Pública from Brazil with 5 publications. Table 1 shows the top 10
journals that published the most articles, recognizing that 18 journals only
published one article included in this research.
Table 1. Journals with the most publications
Name of
magazine
Publication
number
Index
SJR
Year
Country
Quartile
Thematic Area
Procedia -
Social and
Behavioral
Sciences
10
46
0,15
2015
United
Kingdom
0
Psychology
Psychology
(miscellaneous)
Social Sciences
Social Sciences
(miscellaneous)
Codas
9
20
0,37
2019
Brazil
1
Arts and Humanities
Language and
Linguistics
Health professions
Speech and hearing
Medication
Otorhinolaryngology
Cadernos de
Saúde Pública
5
72
0,57
2019
Brazil
2
Medication
Medicine
(miscellaneous)
Public,
Environmental and
Occupational Health
Journal of
Voice
3
83
0,8
2019
USA
1
Health professions
Speech and hearing
Medication
Otorhinolaryngology
Nursing
LPN and LVN
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114
International
Journal of
Environmental
Research and
Public Health
2
92
0,74
2019
Switzerland
2
Environmental
science Health,
toxicology and
mutagenesis
Contamination
Medication
Public,
environmental and
occupational health
Journal of
Work and
Organizational
Psychology
2
61
1,81
2019
United
Kingdom
1
Organizational
behavior and human
resource
management
Public Health
Research and
Practice
2
24
0,55
2019
Australia
2
Medication
Public,
environmental and
occupational health
Brazilian
Journal of
occupational
medicine
2
5
0,2
2019
Brazil
4
Medication
Physiology
(medical)
Collective
health
2
11
0,33
2019
Argentina
3
Medication
Health policy
Public,
environmental and
occupational health
Scandinavian
Journal of
Management
2
54
0,59
2019
United
Kingdom
2
Business,
Management and
Accounting
Strategy and
management
Psychology
Applied Psychology
Journals are a channel of scientific communication, where professionals and
researchers from different disciplines can make their findings known or be
informed about new advances and discoveries, and exchange experiences
(López et al. 2006). This article is a descriptive analysis of articles containing
information on health and safety conditions in teachers, allowing the
understanding and development of this field of knowledge, as well as the
identification and analysis of the bibliometric characteristics of the published
articles. The databases Scopus, Science Direct and Taylor & Francis, were
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115
consulted and included in this research, yielding data of decrease in research
articles on Occupational Health and Safety (OSH), (Collado, Soria,
Canafoglia, & Collado, 2016), according to experts in occupational
psychopathology, it is necessary to evaluate occupational health as a complex
process of social construction, in its various physical, psychological and
emotional aspects, this will contribute to sustain the importance of research
in this area.
During the bibliometric review it was possible to identify that within the
articles found, the most frequent research topic was related to voice disorders,
since it is the main working tool of teachers (Figueredo & Castillo 2016),
results such as voice-related problems (Nazari et al., 2020; Cantor Cutiva et
al., 2013; Sampaio et al., 2012; Giannini et al., 2015), have given way to more
research on this problem as indicated by (Sandoughdar & Mohseni, 2016), in
a research conducted in Iran which argues that teachers at the end of the
working day suffer from vocal fatigue, because they have been speaking
loudly for a long time and in the presence of high level background noise, it
concludes that the overuse, abuse or misuse of the voice during teaching
results in the achievement of an inadequate phonatory pattern, resulting in
changes in the tissues of the teacher's voice.
Another condition that is more prevalent is the significant increase in
problems affecting mental health (Seibt et al., 2005), Seibt agrees with Bannai
et al. as he states that the increase in leave due to mental disorders among
public school teachers in Japan, had an increase from 2,687 in 2002 to 4,960
in 2012 (Bannai, Ukawa, & Tamakoshi, 2015).
The prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders is another common problem
afflicting the health of teachers (Ehsani et al., 2018; da Silva Vitor et al., 2017;
Constantino Coledam et al., 2019), with respect to this, a literature review on
osteomuscular symptoms in teachers was found, which allows recognizing
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that the prevalence reports in the different studies are higher than 70%, being
the regions with more affectation the neck, shoulders and lumbar region, the
risk factors identified are prolonged and maintained postures (Gómez Vélez,
Leal Terranova, & Arias Moreno, 2014).
The topics regarding the research area of the articles included are based on
Medicine, Public, Environmental and Occupational Health with 15%,
followed by Medicine (miscellaneous) Pharmacology (medical) with 10%
and Medicine, Medicine (miscellaneous) Public, Environmental and
Occupational Health with 10%. Other studies have tried to describe the area
of research with different classifications, the topics of the articles consulted
in Brazil had a coverage of 41% on public health, environmental and
occupational health, in the United Kingdom 76% on psychology and the USA
with 75% on the topic of medicine, this shows that not all authors address the
problem from the same topic and from a similar approach. The results of this
analysis are related to what the authors consulted maintain in relation to the
population group of education workers where the research is being carried
out.
CONCLUSIONS
Bibliometric studies make it possible to recognize the progress of research
being carried out in a given area.
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