2020/03/10 by Jay Verkuilen, Renzo Bianchi, Irvin Sam Schonfeld +1 · 3 citations
Psychology · Health Professions · #Mental Health Research Topics #Health, psychology, and well-being #Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
paper · doi:10.1177/1073191120911095
openalex publication_date 2020/03/10 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
Burnout has been viewed as a work-induced condition combining exhaustion, cynicism, and professional inefficacy. Using correlational analyses, an exploratory structural equation modeling bifactor analysis, structural regression analyses, and a network analysis, we examined the claim that burnout should not be mistaken for a depressive syndrome. The study involved 1,258 educational staff members. Burnout was assessed with the Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey and depression with the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale. Illegitimate work tasks and work-nonwork interferences were additionally measured. We notably found that (a) on average, exhaustion, cynicism, and professional inefficacy correlated less strongly with each other than with depression; (b) exhaustion-burnout's core-was more strongly associated with depression than with either cynicism or professional inefficacy; (c) the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 did not correlate more strongly with the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale than with exhaustion; (d) exhaustion and depression loaded primarily on a general distress/dysphoria factor in the exploratory structural equation modeling bifactor analysis; (e) on average, burnout and depression were related to job stressors in a similar manner; (f) work-nonwork interferences were strongly linked to distress/dysphoria. Overall, burnout showed no syndromal unity and lacked discriminant validity. Clinicians should systematically assess depressive symptoms in individuals presenting with a complaint of "burnout."