Objectives: The problem of defining burnout concerns its overlapping effect with other syndromes and disorders, such as depression and anxiety. Additionally, some individual characteristics influence susceptibility to burnout (e.g., neuroticism). Therefore, the question arises whether burnout...

Introduction. The consequences of chronic work-related stress are related to various emotional, cognitive, and behavioral symptoms. Occupational burnout as a complex syndrome is characterized by exhaustion, cynicism, and lower professional efficacy. Moreover, the growing amount of research on the neural correlates of burnout broadens the existing knowledge on the mechanisms underlying this syndrome.Aim of the Study. The aim of the study is to explore possible differences in brain activity between burnout and nonburnout employees. Frequency-specific EEG power analyses in a resting-state condition in burnout subjects and controls are presented.Materials and Methods. Burnout employees (N=46; 19 men) were matched with the control group (N=49; 19 men; mean age: 36.14 years, SD=7.89). The Maslach Burnout Inventory–General Survey (MBI-GS) and the Areas of Worklife Survey (AWS) scale were used to measure burnout symptoms and work conditions, respectively. A 256-channel EEG (EGI System 300) was used to collect psychophysiological data. A repeated measures ANOVA was performed with condition (eyes-open vs. eyes-closed) and region (6 levels: extracted scalp regions) factors; burnout (2 levels: burnout vs. no burnout) was the grouping factor.Results. A significant difference was observed only in the alpha frequency band: the burnout group revealed significantly lower alpha power in the eyes-open condition compared to the controls (p<0.05). The correlation analysis revealed that gender may significantly change the pattern of relations between EEG spectral characteristics and burnout symptoms.Conclusions. Reduced alpha power in burnout individuals suggests cortical hyperactivity and may be related to greater mental effort and the possible development of compensatory mechanisms by burnout subjects.

The presented study refers to cognitive aspects of burnout as the effects of long-term work-related stress. The purpose of the study was to investigate electrophysiological correlates of burnout to explain the mechanisms of the core burnout symptoms: exhaustion and depersonalization/cynicism. The analyzed error-related electrophysiological markers shed light on impaired cognitive mechanisms and the specific changes in information-processing in burnout. In the EEG study design (N=80), two components of error-related potential (ERP), error-related negativity (ERN) and error positivity (Pe), were analyzed. In the non-clinical burnout group (N=40), a significant increase in ERN amplitude and a decrease in Pe amplitude were observed compared to controls (N=40). Enhanced error detection, indexed by increased ERN amplitude, and diminished response monitoring, indexed by decreased Pe amplitude, reveal emerging cognitive problems in the non-clinical burnout group. Cognitive impairments in burnout subjects relate to both reactive and unconscious (ERN) and proactive and conscious (Pe) aspects of error processing. The results indicate a stronger ‘reactive control mode’ that can deplete resources for proactive control and the ability to actively maintain goals. The analysis refers to error processing and specific task demands, thus should not be extended to cognitive processes in general. The characteristics of ERP patterns in burnout resemble psychophysiological indexes of anxiety (increased ERN) and depressive symptoms (decreased Pe), showing to some extent an overlapping effect of burnout and related symptoms and disorders. The results support the scarce existing data on the psychobiological nature of burnout, while extending and specifying its cognitive characteristics.

The substantial body of research employing subjective measures indicates that burnout syndrome is associated with cognitive and emotional dysfunctions. The growing amount of neurophysiological and neuroimaging research helps in broadening existing knowledge of the neural mechanisms underlying core burnout components (emotional exhaustion and depersonalization/cynicism) that are inextricably associated with emotional processing. In the presented EEG study, a group of 93 participants (55 women; mean age = 35.8) were selected for the burnout group or the demographically matched control group on the basis of the results of the Maslach Burnout Inventory – General Survey (MBI-GS) and the Areas of Worklife Survey (AWS). Subjects then participated in an EEG experiment using two experimental procedures: a facial recognition task and viewing of passive pictures. The study focuses on analyzing event-related potentials (ERPs): N170, VPP, EPN, and LPP, as indicators of emotional information processing. Our results show that burnout subjects, as compared to the control group, demonstrate significantly weaker response to affect-evoking stimuli, indexed by a decline in VPP amplitude to emotional faces and decreased EPN amplitude in processing emotional scenes. The analysis of N170 and LPP showed no significant between-group difference. The correlation analyses revealed that VPP and EPN, which are ERP components related to emotional processing, are associated with two core burnout symptoms: emotional exhaustion and cynicism. To our knowledge, we are one of the first research groups to use ERPs to demonstrate such a relationship between neurophysiological activity and burnout syndrome in the context of emotional processing. Thus, in conclusion we emphasized that the decreased amplitude of VPP and EPN components in the burnout group may be a neurophysiological manifestation of emotional blunting and may be considered as neurophysiological markers of emotional exhaustion and cynicism. Additionally, we did not observe a decrease in LPP, which may be considered as a marker that significantly differentiates burnout from depression.