Occupational burnout and its overlapping effect with depression and anxiety

The problem of defining burnout concerns its overlapping effect with other syndromes and disorders, such as depression and anxiety. Additionally, some individual characteristics influence susceptibility to burnout (e.g., neuroticism). Therefore, the question arises whether burnout is or is not a distinct syndrome. The aim of the study is to compare 2 distinct burnout measures by analyzing their connections with organizational and individual variables.

The study was conducted in the Institute of Applied Psychology at the Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland on a group of employees (N = 100; 40 men; mean age 36.03 years). All participants completed 2 burnout scales: the Maslach Burnout Inventory - General Survey (MBI-GS) and the Link Burnout Questionnaire (LBQ). Organizational and individual factors were controlled with Areas of Worklife Survey, State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, NEO Five-Factor Inventory and Beck's Depression Inventory scales. A structural equation path model was created to quantify the relations between organizational factors and burnout, as well as to control the individual factors of anxiety, neuroticism and depression.

The results indicate high compatibility between MBI-GS and LBQ on burnout diagnosis. The MBI-GS and LBQ revealed stronger connections with organizational context and individual characteristics, respectively. Depression explains dimensions of exhaustion (MBI-GS, LBQ), sense of disillusion (LBQ), neuroticism-exhaustion (MBI-GS); anxiety explains sense of professional inefficacy (LBQ).

Besides organizational variables, individual characteristics also play an important role in explaining burnout syndrome. Exploring the 2 burnout models has revealed that depression is an important determinant of exhaustion. Cynicism and relationship deterioration have consistently been explained only by organizational context. Int J Occup Med Environ Health. 2019;32(2):229-44.