Burnout has widely infiltrated the popular culture and has been extensively studied in both psychiatry and psychology. However, there are currently no consensual or binding diagnostic criteria for burnout. A major obstacle to the elevation of burnout to the status of nosological category is the overlap of burnout with depression.

We examined whether burnout and depressive symptoms can be distinguished from each other using a person-centered approach.

A total of 1759 French schoolteachers took part in the present study (77% female; mean age: 41; mean length of employment: 15). Burnout symptoms were assessed with the Shirom-Melamed Burnout Measure (14 items) and depressive symptoms with a dedicated module of the Patient Health Questionnaire (9 items). Data were primarily processed using two-step cluster analysis. Correlation analysis and analysis of variance (ANOVA) were additionally carried out.

Considered as continuous variables, burnout and depression were found to be closely intertwined (r = 0.81; disattenuated correlation: 0.91). Our cluster analysis revealed four different participant profiles, identifiable as “minimal burnout-depression” (n = 542; 31%), “low burnout-depression” (n = 566; 32%), “medium burnout-depression” (n = 412; 23%), and “high burnout-depression” (n = 239; 14%). Burnout and depression played equivalently important roles in cluster construction. Our ANOVA confirmed that the four clusters differed from each other in terms of burnout and depressive symptoms.

Our findings are consistent with the view that the burnout syndrome is depressive in nature. A diagnostic category dedicated to burnout may therefore not be needed.