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Volume IV · Life Dashboard · Tool 005

Are you stressed, or are you burned out?

Two distinct constructs, one screen. The Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10) — published by Cohen, Kamarck & Mermelstein in JHSB (1983) — measures how unpredictable, uncontrollable, and overloaded your life has felt over the last month. The Copenhagen Burnout Inventory Personal Burnout subscale measures cumulative physical and emotional exhaustion. Both public domain. Two scores, four severity bands, five archetypes — in about five to seven minutes.

Items Assessed 16 validated
Research Basis Cohen 1983 · Kristensen 2005
Time to Complete ~5–7 minutes
Your Data Never leaves your browser
Privacy-first Your responses stay in your browser. Nothing is transmitted, stored, or logged.
Developed by Abiot Y. Derbie, PhD — cognitive neuroscientist & founder. Reviewed by Eskezeia Y. Dessie, PhD.
Peer-reviewed instrument PSS-10 (Cohen 1983) + CBI Personal Burnout (Kristensen 2005). Both public domain. Documented methodology.
Educational screening, not a diagnostic instrument. Results are estimates derived from your responses and the published validation literature. This is not a clinical assessment — stress disorders, burnout, anxiety, and depression are clinically related but distinct, and only a qualified mental health professional can sort one from another. If your scores are elevated or your concerns persist, consider a clinical evaluation.

For researchers and curious users: read the full methodology — the validated framework, the verbatim items used, the scoring algorithm including reverse-coding, the archetype thresholds, the care-aware escalation logic, the limitations, and the references.

Answer honestly.

Each item updates your score in real time. Nothing is submitted, stored, or sent — the calculation runs entirely in your browser. Your answers stay between you and your device.

i.
Perceived Stress PSS-10 · 10 items · Last month reference
Item 1 Helplessness

In the last month, how often have you been upset because of something that happened unexpectedly?

Item 2 Helplessness

In the last month, how often have you felt that you were unable to control the important things in your life?

Item 3 Helplessness

In the last month, how often have you felt nervous and "stressed"?

Item 4 Reverse · Self-efficacy

In the last month, how often have you felt confident about your ability to handle your personal problems?

Item 5 Reverse · Self-efficacy

In the last month, how often have you felt that things were going your way?

Item 6 Helplessness

In the last month, how often have you found that you could not cope with all the things that you had to do?

Item 7 Reverse · Self-efficacy

In the last month, how often have you been able to control irritations in your life?

Item 8 Reverse · Self-efficacy

In the last month, how often have you felt that you were on top of things?

Item 9 Helplessness

In the last month, how often have you been angered because of things that were outside of your control?

Item 10 Helplessness

In the last month, how often have you felt difficulties were piling up so high that you could not overcome them?

ii.
Personal Burnout CBI · 6 items · Cumulative exhaustion pattern
Item 11 Burnout

How often do you feel tired?

Item 12 Burnout

How often are you physically exhausted?

Item 13 Burnout

How often are you emotionally exhausted?

Item 14 Burnout · sentinel

How often do you think: "I can't take it anymore"?

Item 15 Burnout

How often do you feel worn out?

Item 16 Burnout

How often do you feel weak and susceptible to illness?

Your Result · Based on 16 validated items

Your stress & burnout profile.

This is the shape of your responses across the PSS-10 perceived stress and CBI Personal Burnout dimensions. The result is a screening signal — not a diagnosis.

PSS-10 severity band · Score 0–40
0 / 40

Low stress

Below the 50th percentile of US adults — your appraisal of recent life events suggests fewer feelings of overload, unpredictability, and uncontrollability than most.

Your archetype profile

The Profile

Your archetype description will appear here.

Cross-tool referrals: populated based on your factor profile.
Sub-dimensional breakdown

Where your signal sits.

PSS Helplessness 0%
PSS-10 items 1, 2, 3, 6, 9, 10 · max 24 · uncontrollability & overload
PSS Self-efficacy 0%
PSS-10 items 4, 5, 7, 8 (raw, non-reversed) · max 16 · perceived control buffer
CBI Personal Burnout 0%
CBI items 11–16 · max 100 · cumulative physical & emotional exhaustion
§ The two-axis view

Where you sit on the stress × burnout map.

Two scores, one position. The horizontal axis is your perceived stress (PSS-10, last month). The vertical axis is your cumulative exhaustion (CBI Personal Burnout, past few weeks). The five colored zones are the archetypes. Cutoffs are from Cohen & Janicki-Deverts (2012) and Kristensen et al. (2005).

PSS × CBI archetype quadrant plot Your perceived stress and burnout scores plotted on a 2-axis map with five archetype zones. CALM BASELINE STRAINED BUT COPING ACUTE STRESS CHRONIC EXHAUSTION BURNOUT- ONSET 0 14 27 40 Perceived Stress (PSS-10) → 0 25 50 100 CBI Personal Burnout →
Your position: complete all 16 items
§ What the evidence supports

Four pathways for your archetype.

These are not generic recommendations. Each pathway is calibrated to your archetype and grounded in published evidence — peer-reviewed citations included.

§ Stress and burnout rarely travel alone

What else often travels with stress and burnout.

Stress and burnout are correlated with — but distinct from — anxiety, depression, and sleep dysregulation. A single screen rarely captures the full picture. These four conditions overlap most.

r = 0.57
Generalized Anxiety

PSS-10 and GAD-7 share moderate-to-strong correlation (Bai et al. 2017, Spearman r = 0.57). Distinct constructs — stress is appraisal of demands, anxiety is anticipatory worry — but they often co-present.

Take Anxiety Test →
overlap
Depression

14-sample meta-analysis (Bianchi et al. 2021, n = 12,417) found exhaustion-depression correlations approaching unity after disattenuation. High burnout warrants a depression screen.

Take Depression Test →
r = 0.39
Sleep dysregulation

Burnout-insomnia correlation r = 0.39 (Membrive-Jiménez et al. 2022 meta-analysis). Söderström 2012 prospective cohort: insufficient sleep predicts clinical burnout 2 years later. Bidirectional.

Sleep Optimizer →
RR 1.27
Cardiovascular risk

High perceived stress associated with 27% relative-risk increase for incident coronary heart disease (Richardson et al. 2012 meta-analysis, n = 118,696, ~10-year follow-up) — magnitude comparable to a 50 mg/dL LDL increase.

Buffer with sleep →
§ Methodology · LBL-STR v1.0

The science behind the Stress & Burnout Index.

This tool combines two public-domain instruments. The Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10) was published by Cohen, Kamarck & Mermelstein in Journal of Health and Social Behavior (1983); it is the most widely cited stress instrument in psychology with over 42,000 Google Scholar citations and validation in 40+ languages. The Copenhagen Burnout Inventory Personal Burnout subscale was published by Kristensen, Borritz, Villadsen & Christensen in Work & Stress (2005) as a public-domain alternative to the proprietary Maslach Burnout Inventory.

The full methodology — including item lineage, scoring with reverse-coding details, severity-band derivation from Cohen & Janicki-Deverts 2012 US national probability samples, archetype thresholds, care-aware escalation logic, validation evidence, limitations, and references — is documented on the tool methodology page.

What is the PSS-10?

The Perceived Stress Scale-10 is a 10-item self-report measure of how unpredictable, uncontrollable, and overloaded a respondent finds their life over the past month. It is not a diagnostic instrument — there is no diagnosis of "stress" in DSM-5 or ICD-11, and the PSS-10 was never intended as one. Rather, the score quantifies subjective appraisal of demands and is robustly associated with downstream health outcomes (cardiovascular risk, immune function, mental health symptoms) when sustained.

Each item is rated on a 5-point Likert scale (0 = Never, 4 = Very often). Items 4, 5, 7, and 8 are reverse-scored — they are worded in the positive direction (e.g., "felt confident", "things going your way"). The tool handles the reversal automatically. Total scores range from 0 to 40.

“Higher PSS scores were associated with failure to quit smoking, failure among diabetics to control their blood sugar levels, greater vulnerability to stressful life-event-elicited depressive symptoms, and more colds.”

Adapted from Cohen, Kamarck & Mermelstein, 1983 — JHSB; psychometric review in Taylor 2015 — Psych Assessment

What is the CBI Personal Burnout subscale?

The Copenhagen Burnout Inventory was developed at the Danish National Institute of Occupational Health between 1997 and 2005 as a public-domain replacement for proprietary burnout instruments. The CBI has three subscales (Personal, Work-Related, Client-Related); we use the 6-item Personal Burnout subscale because it measures cumulative physical and psychological exhaustion in everyone — employed, unemployed, retired, students, caregivers — without requiring the respondent to be in a job with clients or customers.

Each item is rated on a 5-point frequency scale (0 = Never/Almost never, 100 = Always; with intermediate steps at 25, 50, 75). The Personal Burnout score is the arithmetic mean of all 6 items, ranging from 0 to 100. No items are reverse-scored.

The two PSS-10 subscales and their items.

Multiple confirmatory factor analyses (Roberti 2006; Taylor 2015; Klein 2016) support a two-factor PSS-10 structure: a Helplessness factor (the 6 negatively-worded items) and a Self-efficacy factor (the 4 positively-worded items, scored without reversal). Two people with the same PSS-10 total can have very different sub-profiles.

1. Helplessness (Negative) PSS-10 Factor 1 · 6 items · Max 24

The Helplessness factor captures the feeling that demands are unpredictable, uncontrollable, and overloading. It is the more clinically loaded of the two subscales — Helplessness scores correlate more strongly with depression and anxiety symptoms than Self-efficacy scores do (Bai et al. 2017; Baik et al. 2019).

Item 1
“In the last month, how often have you been upset because of something that happened unexpectedly?”
Item 2
“In the last month, how often have you felt that you were unable to control the important things in your life?”
Item 3
“In the last month, how often have you felt nervous and 'stressed'?”
Item 6
“In the last month, how often have you found that you could not cope with all the things that you had to do?”
Item 9
“In the last month, how often have you been angered because of things that were outside of your control?”
Item 10
“In the last month, how often have you felt difficulties were piling up so high that you could not overcome them?”
2. Self-efficacy (Positive) PSS-10 Factor 2 · 4 items reversed · Max 16 (raw)

The Self-efficacy factor reflects perceived control and coping capacity. These four items are positively worded — "felt confident", "things going your way", "controlled irritations", "on top of things" — and are reverse-scored when computing the PSS-10 total. We display the raw (non-reversed) scores in your subscale breakdown so you can see your perceived-control buffer directly.

Item 4
“In the last month, how often have you felt confident about your ability to handle your personal problems?”
Item 5
“In the last month, how often have you felt that things were going your way?”
Item 7
“In the last month, how often have you been able to control irritations in your life?”
Item 8
“In the last month, how often have you felt that you were on top of things?”
3. Personal Burnout (CBI) CBI · 6 items · Max 100 (averaged)

Personal Burnout measures cumulative physical and psychological exhaustion. Item 14 ("I can't take it anymore") is a clinical sentinel — endorsement at "Often" or "Always" frequency triggers a care-aware banner regardless of total score. The Personal Burnout score is the mean of the 6 item scores (each 0/25/50/75/100), not the sum.

Item 11
“How often do you feel tired?”
Item 12
“How often are you physically exhausted?”
Item 13
“How often are you emotionally exhausted?”
Item 14 (sentinel)
“How often do you think: 'I can't take it anymore'?”
Item 15
“How often do you feel worn out?”
Item 16
“How often do you feel weak and susceptible to illness?”

How your scores are computed.

Step 1 — PSS-10 item scoring: Each of 10 items is scored 0–4 (Never → Very often). Items 4, 5, 7, and 8 are reverse-scored: a raw response of 0 contributes 4 to the total, a raw 4 contributes 0. The tool handles reversal automatically.

Step 2 — PSS-10 total and bands: Sum all 10 adjusted item scores for a total of 0–40. Four severity bands are taken from Cohen & Janicki-Deverts (2012) US national probability samples (n = 2,000): Low 0–13 (below 50th percentile), Moderate 14–26 (50th–80th percentile), High 27–32 (above 80th percentile), Severe 33–40 (top decile).

Step 3 — CBI Personal Burnout: Sum the 6 CBI items (each 0/25/50/75/100), divide by 6, round to the nearest integer. Bands per Kristensen et al. (2005): No/Low 0–24, Moderate 25–49, High 50–74, Severe 75–100.

Step 4 — archetype assignment: Five archetypes (Burnout-onset / Acute Stress / Chronic Exhaustion / Strained but Coping / Calm Baseline) are assigned by a first-match-wins decision tree over both scores. Full thresholds and rationale are on the methodology page.

Step 5 — care-aware banner: Triggers when CBI ≥ 75, OR PSS ≥ 33, OR item 14 ("I can't take it anymore") endorsed at 75 or 100. These thresholds correspond to the upper severity bands published in the original validation studies and represent levels at which professional consultation is warranted, not optional.

§ How to cite this tool

Citing the Stress & Burnout Index in academic or professional work

If you reference this tool in a paper, presentation, or clinical setting, please use one of the standard citation formats below. The tool's methodology is fully transparent and the underlying instruments (PSS-10, CBI Personal Burnout) are public-domain peer-reviewed scales — see the references section for primary literature.

§ APA 7
LifeByLogic. (2026). Stress & Burnout Index — PSS-10 + CBI Personal Burnout (Version 1.0) [Web application]. https://lifebylogic.com/life-dashboard/stress-burnout/
§ MLA 9
LifeByLogic. “Stress & Burnout Index — PSS-10 + CBI Personal Burnout.” LifeByLogic, 2026, lifebylogic.com/life-dashboard/stress-burnout/.
§ Chicago (author-date)
LifeByLogic. 2026. “Stress & Burnout Index — PSS-10 + CBI Personal Burnout.” Version 1.0. Accessed [date]. https://lifebylogic.com/life-dashboard/stress-burnout/.
§ BibTeX
@misc{lifebylogic_stress_burnout_2026, author = {{LifeByLogic}}, title = {{Stress \& Burnout Index --- PSS-10 + CBI Personal Burnout}}, year = {2026}, version = {1.0}, howpublished = {\url{https://lifebylogic.com/life-dashboard/stress-burnout/}}, note = {Web application implementing Cohen 1983 (PSS-10) and Kristensen 2005 (CBI Personal Burnout), both public domain} }
§ Sources & Citations

The peer-reviewed evidence base.

Every claim on this page is grounded in peer-reviewed research. The PSS-10 and CBI Personal Burnout instruments are reproduced under public-domain status with full citation to the original authors.

Primary instruments

  1. Cohen, S., Kamarck, T., & Mermelstein, R. (1983).
    A global measure of perceived stress.
    Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 24(4), 385–396. doi.org/10.2307/2136404 · Public domain
  2. Kristensen, T. S., Borritz, M., Villadsen, E., & Christensen, K. B. (2005).
    The Copenhagen Burnout Inventory: A new tool for the assessment of burnout.
    Work & Stress, 19(3), 192–207. doi.org/10.1080/02678370500297720 · Public domain

Validation, norms, and psychometrics

  1. Cohen, S., & Janicki-Deverts, D. (2012).
    Who's stressed? Distributions of psychological stress in the United States in probability samples from 1983, 2006, and 2009.
    Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 42(6), 1320–1334. doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.2012.00900.x
  2. Taylor, J. M. (2015).
    Psychometric analysis of the Ten-Item Perceived Stress Scale.
    Psychological Assessment, 27(1), 90–101. doi.org/10.1037/pas0000049
  3. Roberti, J. W., Harrington, L. N., & Storch, E. A. (2006).
    Further psychometric support for the 10-item version of the Perceived Stress Scale.
    Journal of College Counseling, 9(2), 135–147. doi.org/10.1002/j.2161-1882.2006.tb00100.x
  4. Klein, E. M., Brähler, E., Dreier, M., et al. (2016).
    The German version of the Perceived Stress Scale — psychometric characteristics in a representative German community sample.
    BMC Psychiatry, 16, 159. doi.org/10.1186/s12888-016-0875-9
  5. Borritz, M., Bültmann, U., Rugulies, R., et al. (2005).
    Psychosocial work characteristics as predictors for burnout: Findings from 3-year follow-up of the PUMA study.
    Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 47(10), 1015–1025. doi.org/10.1097/01.jom.0000175155.50789.98

Stress, burnout, and downstream health

  1. McEwen, B. S. (1998).
    Stress, adaptation, and disease: Allostasis and allostatic load.
    Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 840(1), 33–44. doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-6632.1998.tb09546.x
  2. Lupien, S. J., McEwen, B. S., Gunnar, M. R., & Heim, C. (2009).
    Effects of stress throughout the lifespan on the brain, behaviour and cognition.
    Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 10(6), 434–445. doi.org/10.1038/nrn2639
  3. Richardson, S., Shaffer, J. A., Falzon, L., et al. (2012).
    Meta-analysis of perceived stress and its association with incident coronary heart disease.
    The American Journal of Cardiology, 110(12), 1711–1716. doi.org/10.1016/j.amjcard.2012.08.004
  4. Sandi, C. (2013).
    Stress and cognition.
    WIREs Cognitive Science, 4(3), 245–261. doi.org/10.1002/wcs.1222

Burnout-related comorbidity

  1. Bianchi, R., Verkuilen, J., Schonfeld, I. S., et al. (2021).
    Is burnout a depressive condition? A 14-sample meta-analytic and bifactor analytic study.
    Clinical Psychological Science, 9(4), 579–597. doi.org/10.1177/2167702620979597
  2. Membrive-Jiménez, M. J., Velando-Soriano, A., Pradas-Hernandez, L., et al. (2022).
    Relation between burnout and sleep problems in nurses: A systematic review with meta-analysis.
    Healthcare, 10(5), 954. doi.org/10.3390/healthcare10050954
  3. Söderström, M., Jeding, K., Ekstedt, M., et al. (2012).
    Insufficient sleep predicts clinical burnout.
    Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 17(2), 175–183. doi.org/10.1037/a0027518
  4. Maslach, C., Schaufeli, W. B., & Leiter, M. P. (2001).
    Job burnout.
    Annual Review of Psychology, 52, 397–422. doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.52.1.397

Theoretical foundations and intervention evidence

  1. Lazarus, R. S., & Folkman, S. (1984).
    Stress, appraisal, and coping.
    Springer Publishing Company, New York.
  2. Hofmann, S. G., Sawyer, A. T., Witt, A. A., & Oh, D. (2010).
    The effect of mindfulness-based therapy on anxiety and depression: A meta-analytic review.
    Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 78(2), 169–183. doi.org/10.1037/a0018555
  3. Smith, B. W., Dalen, J., Wiggins, K., et al. (2008).
    The Brief Resilience Scale: Assessing the ability to bounce back.
    International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 15(3), 194–200. doi.org/10.1080/10705500802222972
§ Frequently asked questions

About the Stress & Burnout Index.

Is this a clinical diagnosis?

No. The Stress & Burnout Index is an educational screening tool, not a diagnostic instrument. There is no diagnosis of "stress" in DSM-5 or ICD-11; "burnout" is recognized in ICD-11 as an occupational phenomenon but is not a disease. Stress, burnout, anxiety, and depression are clinically related but distinct, and only a qualified mental health professional can sort one from another after a comprehensive evaluation. A high score on this tool is a reason to consider professional support, not a label.

What is the PSS-10?

The Perceived Stress Scale-10 is a 10-item measure developed by Cohen, Kamarck & Mermelstein (1983) at Carnegie Mellon University. It assesses how unpredictable, uncontrollable, and overloaded a respondent finds their life over the past month. With over 42,000 Google Scholar citations and validation in 40+ languages, it is the most widely used global measure of subjective stress in psychology and public health research.

What is the CBI Personal Burnout subscale?

The Copenhagen Burnout Inventory was developed by Kristensen, Borritz, Villadsen & Christensen (2005) as a public-domain alternative to the proprietary Maslach Burnout Inventory. The 6-item Personal Burnout subscale assesses physical and psychological exhaustion in everyone — employed, unemployed, retired, students, caregivers — without requiring the respondent to be in a job with clients or customers.

What does my archetype mean?

Five research-grounded archetypes integrate your perceived stress score with your burnout score: Burnout-onset (both high), Acute Stress (stress high, burnout still moderate), Chronic Exhaustion (burnout high, stress feels normalized), Strained but Coping (moderate on both with intact self-efficacy), and Calm Baseline (low on both). Archetypes are first-match-wins per validated cutoffs — the quadrant plot on the results page shows your exact position.

Are the items verbatim from the original instruments?

Yes. Both instruments are public domain for non-commercial educational use. PSS-10 items follow Cohen et al. (1983) verbatim; CBI Personal Burnout items follow Kristensen et al. (2005) verbatim. Original references are cited above.

Are my answers stored?

No. The tool runs entirely in your browser. Your individual answers are not transmitted to any server, are not stored in cookies or local storage, and are erased the moment you close or refresh the page. There are no accounts and no tracking of individual responses. The only analytics data captured is anonymous, aggregate page-view information via Google Analytics 4 with IP anonymization enabled.

What if I score in the highest band?

If your CBI Personal Burnout score is 75 or above, OR your PSS-10 score is 33 or above, OR you endorsed the "I can't take it anymore" item at "Often" or "Always" frequency, the results page will show a prominent care recommendation. These thresholds correspond to the upper severity bands published in the original validation studies. Persistent high scores deserve evaluation by a primary care doctor or mental health professional, not self-diagnosis.

How is this different from the Anxiety Test or Depression Test?

Anxiety (GAD-7), depression (PHQ-9), and stress/burnout are related but distinct constructs. Stress is about appraisal of demands; burnout is about cumulative exhaustion; anxiety is about anticipatory worry; depression is about persistent low mood. Many people score elevated on multiple — these tools are designed to be used alongside each other, not as substitutes. The comorbidity panel above shows the empirical correlations.

Methodology Implements the PSS-10 from Cohen, Kamarck & Mermelstein (1983, JHSB) and the CBI Personal Burnout subscale from Kristensen et al. (2005, Work & Stress). Authored by Abiot Y. Derbie, PhD, reviewed by Eskezeia Y. Dessie, PhD.
Comorbidity context Co-occurrence prevalence drawn from Bianchi et al. (2021, Clin Psychol Sci) for burnout–depression, Membrive-Jiménez et al. (2022) for burnout–sleep, and Richardson et al. (2012) for stress–cardiovascular risk.
License & version Both instruments used as public domain with full attribution.
Tool identifier: LBL-STR · v1.0
Last reviewed: May 2026