Perfectionism and clinical disorders among employees

We examined differences in perfectionism between burned-out employees (n = 77), depressed employees (n = 29), anxiety-disordered employees (n = 31), employees with comorbid disorders, that is, a combination of clinical burnout, depression, or anxiety disorder (n = 28), and individuals without clinical burnout, depression disorder, or anxiety disorder (clinical control group; n = 110). The results suggest that setting high personal standards per se is not associated with clinical disorders. In contrast, maladaptive aspects of perfectionism, including perceived discrepancy between standards and performance and socially prescribed perfectionism, were related to clinical disorders, and in particular to comorbidity. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.