Identifying Occupational Health Risk at the Start of Teacher Education: A Five-Country Study

The Arbeitsbezogenes Verhaltens- und Erlebensmuster (AVEM) is a preventive diagnostic tool designed to assess typical work-related patterns of perceiving and coping with occupational stress. It aims to identify individuals at risk of burnout and other occupational health problems at an early stage. The present study examined cross-country differences in pattern distribution among teacher education students in Central Europe and tested the replicability of the work-related patterns in an international sample. The sample consisted of 3,005 first-year students enrolled in full-time teacher education programs at higher education institutions in Austria, Czechia, Germany, Poland, and Slovakia. The findings revealed that 36.97% of Austrian, 39.16% of German, 59.63% of Polish, 62.18% of Slovak, and 62.85% of Czech students were classified into risk patterns, indicating heightened vulnerability to occupational health problems. Latent profile analysis confirmed the original four-pattern solution, underscoring the diagnostic utility of the AVEM instrument. These findings suggest that AVEM can be implemented as early as the first year of teacher education to facilitate the early identification of vulnerable individuals. The concerning trends revealed in this study highlight the need for policy action, particularly the integration of psychological interventions into teacher education to support occupational health in prospective teachers.