title: Burnout and depression: Label-related stigma, help-seeking, and syndrome overlap.
abstract: We investigated whether burnout and depression differed in terms of public stigma and help-seeking attitudes and behaviors. Secondarily, we examined the overlap of burnout and depressive symptoms. A total of 1046 French schoolteachers responded to an Internet survey in November-December 2015. The survey included measures of public stigma, help-seeking attitudes and behaviors, burnout and depressive symptoms, self-rated health, neuroticism, extraversion, history of anxiety or depressive disorder, social desirability, and socio-demographic variables. The burnout label appeared to be less stigmatizing than the depression label. In either case, however, fewer than 1% of the participants exhibited stigma scores signaling agreement with the proposed stigmatizing statements. Help-seeking attitudes and behaviors did not differ between burnout and depression. Participants considered burnout and depression similarly worth-treating. A huge overlap was observed between the self-report, time-standardized measures of burnout and depressive symptoms (disattenuated correlation: .91). The overlap was further evidenced in a confirmatory factor analysis. Thus, while burnout and depression as syndromes are unlikely to be distinct, how burnout and depression are socially represented may differ. To our knowledge, this study is the first to compare burnout- and depression-related stigma and help-seeking in the French context. Cross-national, multi-occupational studies examining different facets of stigma are needed.
authors.affiliation: University of Neuchâtel, Institute of Work and Organizational Psychology, Neuchâtel, Switzerland. Electronic address: renzo.bianchi@unine.ch.
authors.forename: Renzo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Bianchi
authors.affiliation: The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, Department of Educational Psychology, New York, NY, USA.
authors.forename: Jay
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Verkuilen
authors.affiliation: University of Neuchâtel, Center for Cognitive Science, Neuchâtel, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Romain
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Brisson
authors.affiliation: The City College of the City University of New York, Department of Psychology, New York, NY, USA.
authors.forename: Irvin Sam
authors.initials: IS
authors.lastname: Schonfeld
authors.affiliation: Bourgogne Franche-Comté University, Department of Psychology, Besançon, France.
authors.forename: Eric
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Laurent
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001007:Anxiety / Q000523:psychology; D002055:Burnout, Professional / Q000523:psychology*; D003863:Depression / Q000523:psychology*; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D000066505:Help-Seeking Behavior; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010342:Patient Acceptance of Health Care / Q000523:psychology*; D010551:Personality; D057545:Social Stigma
keywords: Burnout; Construct overlap; Depression; Extraversion; Help-seeking; Neuroticism; Self-rated health; Stigma; Stress