Is vital exhaustion distinct? A meta-analytic investigation on the immediate nomological network of vital exhaustion.

A multitude of studies have supported that vital exhaustion is an important predictor of physical and psychological well-being, especially in the aftermath of adverse medical events; however, some authors have expressed that vital exhaustion may be repetitive with other popular constructs, namely burnout, fatigue, and depression. We resolve this tension by performing a meta-analysis of 74 sources on the immediate nomological network of vital exhaustion. Our results support that the relations of vital exhaustion with emotional exhaustion ( = 0.71,  = 0.82,  = 4,  = 1152) and depression ( = 0.70,  = 0.83,  = 59,  = 30,963) approached the magnitude of its convergent validity correlation ( = 0.75,  = 0.88,  = 4,  = 1445), suggesting that these constructs share most of their variance. Researchers should reinvestigate whether vital exhaustion relates to outcomes when accounting for these two constructs.