AccScience Publishing / GHES / Online First / DOI: 10.36922/GHES025270048
ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE

Teaching in times of crisis: A cross-sectional study of lifestyle, stress, and anxiety among educators during COVID-19

Joana Matos1 Sara Diogo Gonçalves2* Maria Monteiro1,2 Ana Caramelo1,2,3
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1 School of Health, University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro, Vila Real, Portugal
2 Clinical Academic Center of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro, University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro, Vila Real, Portugal
3 RISE-Health Research Network, Faculty of Medicine, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal
Received: 30 June 2025 | Revised: 4 November 2025 | Accepted: 18 November 2025 | Published online: 15 December 2025
© 2025 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on educators, altering their work routines, increasing stress, and affecting their overall well-being. This study assessed teachers’ lifestyles, stress, and anxiety levels during the COVID-19 pandemic and implemented an intervention to promote healthy eating. A cross-sectional, quantitative study was conducted among 105 teachers, who completed an online questionnaire that included sociodemographic items, the FANTASTIC lifestyle questionnaire, and the anxiety, depression, and stress scale (EADS-21). Most participants were female (88.6%), over 51 years old (60%), and had over 15 years of teaching experience (86.7%). The transition to remote teaching required 93.3% of participants to reorganize their schedules and 89.5% to modify their lifestyle and family routines, resulting in over half of the participants expressing dissatisfaction with remote teaching. The EADS-21 results indicated that the stress subscale had the highest mean score (0.98). The study emphasizes the importance of targeted health promotion strategies for educators during times of crisis. Future research should explore the long-term impact of such interventions on teachers’ mental health and professional performance.

Keywords
Teachers
Community nursing
Lifestyle
Stress
Anxiety
COVID-19
Funding
None.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare they have no competing interests.
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