Management of technostress in teachers as an occupational risk in the context of COVID19

The integration of new technologies in schools and high schools are linked to new problems with the use and management of ITC tools as technostress between teachers. Technostress is associated with several negative effects on workers’ health as anxiety, musculoskeletal disorders, headache, mental and physical fatigue. Due to the worldwide COVID19 pandemic, the majority of schools blocked out, and face to face courses were transformed into online courses in a very short time. In these circumstances, several teachers were forced to increase their skills with ICT technology to accomplish their teaching objectives, and their technological workload was higher than at the beginning of the course. An expert panel was selected following the staticized group methodology to evaluate the technostress of teachers. A validated questionnaire was answered by 11 members from the expert panel selected. Preliminary results pointed out that occupational risks linked to technostress were higher during the pandemic period, especially at the beginning of the crisis. Older teachers showed more vulnerability to the risk, because of a lack of training and adaptation of some of the new tools for online courses, while women showed higher levels of workload demands. Prevention measures as specific training programs for ICT, rational use of ICT, and a more balanced distribution of work and family life at home should be developed to address the problem.