Psychological dist
ress have been found to be high
and
influence nega-
tively
nurses’ and teachers’ work. In t
his nine
-
year
project
, we present the first lon-
gitudinal study comparing psychological distress from 1467 students and young pro-
fessionals in nursing and teaching. Psychological distress was measured with GHQ
12 at the start and the end of their studies an
d three and six years after graduation.
Both descriptive statistics and estimated models were used to assess psychological
distress over time. Psychological distress increased significantly in both groups dur-
ing education. The reduction of psychological di
stress was
significant
among the
nurses
,
and they clearly showed a “healthy worker effect” when coming into clinical
work. The teachers had a small and non
-
significant reduction in the same period and
did not show
a
positive effect
after starting
pedagogic
al work