Burnout in nursing staff: Is there a relationship between depression and burnout?

Objective: There is evidence that burnout may be a clinical entity with pat hological stress reaction features related to the inability in finding plea sure from work. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationsh ip between burnout and depression. Methods: The study took place in the gen eral hospital AHEPA of Thessaloniki. All members of the nursing staff(in to tal 368 subjects) took part. The protocol was self-reported and anonymous, in order to obtain as valid data as possible and included the Maslach Burno ut Inventory (MBI) to assess the level of burnout, the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) to assess personality traits, and the Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale to assess depressive symptomatology. Results: The analysis revealed a weak but significant relationship between burnout and depressio n. Conclusions: Depression is a pervasive disorder that affects almost ever y aspect of the patient's life. On the contrary, burnout is, by definition, a syndrome restricted to the patient's professional environment. However, it seems that there may be two distinct types of burnout syndromes, of whic h the one comprising the majority of nurses has little or no common feature s with depression. The second type consists of individuals with a predispos ition to develop burnout. The latter is characterized by more severe sympto matology, phenotypic similarity to depression and presumably common etiolog ical mechanisms.