When we hear the term "burnout", most of us would think about working long hours, and the stress built up from our jobs and the people involved in them. However, a surprising new study suggests that only a minority of people with burnout actually think their symptoms are due to their work.

The research, which was led by a team from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), could challenge the conventional thinking about how people reach burnout, and how we might be able to protect against it.

Less than 30 percent of the people surveyed blamed their job as the primary reason they felt burnt out.

The researchers suggest a broader range of factors and pressures in everyday life are often behind burnout, not just what's happening at work.

"People who experience burnout describe stress in their daily lives which leads to a form of depression," says psychologist Renzo Bianchi, from NTNU. "You could call it depressive stress in life."

The research involved 813 employees in Norway, some of whom had reported feelings of burnout. The scientists compared what participants perceived as contributing factors to burnout, exhaustion, and non-specific psychological distress.

Burnout tended to have the strongest link with job variables, but some work-related factors like job security and colleague support were more closely associated with general psychological stress than with burnout, the data showed.

Intriguingly, only 27.7 percent of participants with burnout symptoms said they thought work was the main reason they felt burned out.

This isn't the only study where the majority of people with burnout have said work isn't the primary cause, either. The researchers note that burnout and its triggers can work differently for everyone.

"For people with a more anxious personality, worries and stress can drain a lot of energy, without it necessarily being solely about their job," says Bianchi.

"I think it is important to conduct more research on this, and especially on what impact personality has. Constantly worrying about what could go wrong is exhausting."

The World Health Organization describes burnout as "chronic workplace stress" with three dimensions: exhaustion or a lack of energy, increased distance from or negativity towards work, and behavior that's less professional.

Definitions involving work have in fact been around since the term "burnout" was first coined by US psychologist Herbert Freudenberger. Originally, it was applied to people in caregiving professions, before being expanded to all types of jobs.

Those definitions may need a rethink, the researchers behind this latest study suggest – not just so that we can better recognize burnout and its symptoms, but also so that we can improve ways of dealing with it. Focusing on the work environment won't make much of a difference if the burnout has little to do with work to begin with.

Burning out can negatively affect physical and mental health in a whole host of ways, and of course can be driven by work in some cases – but also by family, health, or financial issues, according to the researchers.

The researchers mention job security, coworker support, and self-determination as ways of minimizing the risk of burnout at work, as well as finding a career doing something you love – if you're fortunate enough to be able to.

"Not everyone is as fortunate to love their job, and as a result, have the capacity to tolerate more stress at work," says Bianchi. "But it is important to find a meaningful job and then put in the work needed to succeed."

The research has been published in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research.