Perhaps unsurprisingly the group of people who report feeling exhausted is more likely to include people with ill health. Causal direction and validity cannot be determined from this study but the study will inspire such investigations.
Evidence from:
T Honkonen et al. J Psychosom. Res. (2006) Vol. 61 p 59 – 66
“The association between burnout and physical illness in the general population—results from the Finnish Health 2000 Study”
Is burnout work related? On present evidence it is not possible to determine whether the physical illness reduced the capacity to cope, or the burnout caused the physical illness, or burnout and physical illness are both the result of some other pathological mechanism.
If a physical, objective health outcome was associated with occupational stress, the scope for claims would be greatly increased.
Further detail: