Empirical Redundancy of Burnout and Depression: Evidence from Time-standardized Measures

Abstract

Introduction

Burnout and depression are ordinarily assessed within different time frames. Burnout is most frequently assessed on an annual or a monthly basis whereas depression is generally assessed over a one- or two-week period. This state of affairs may have partly obscured the burnout-depression relationship in past research and contributed to an underestimation of burnout-depression overlap.

Objectives

We investigated burnout-depression overlap using time-standardized measures of the two constructs. We additionally examined whether burnout and depression were differently associated with work-related effort and reward, occupational social support, and intention to quit the job.

Methods

We enrolled 257 Swiss schoolteachers (76% female; mean age: 45). Burnout was assessed with the Shirom-Melamed Burnout Measure and depression with a dedicated module of the Patient Health Questionnaire. Work-related effort and reward were measured with a short version of the Effort-Reward Imbalance Scale and occupational social support with a subscale of the Job Content Questionnaire. Intention to quit the job was assessed with 3 generic items (e.g., “I plan on leaving my job within the next year”).

Results

We observed a raw correlation of .82 and a disattenuated correlation of .91 between burnout and depression. Burnout's dimensions (physical fatigue; cognitive weariness; emotional exhaustion) did not correlate more strongly with each other (mean r = .63) than with depression (mean r = .69). Burnout and depression showed similar associations with the job-related factors under scrutiny.

Conclusions

Burnout and depression may be empirically-redundant constructs. Measurement artifacts probably contributed to an underestimation of burnout-depression overlap in many studies.

Disclosure of interest

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.