Objective: Research on the association of empathy and burnout within professional health care workers has shown that the work is posing a risk for burnout. Empathy and compassion abilities are essential to understand others and when working with caring for others. Research from social neuroscience and psychology has forwarded findings indicating the risk of a negative side of empathy – empathic distress being associated with ill health such as burnout. Contrary, compassion has been shown to be associated with health benefits. Research integrating knowledge from social neuroscience and psychology is needed to inform evidence-based health promotion in the workplace arena.

Aim: The aim is to investigate if empathic distress among professional health care workers is associated with burnout, and if compassion has a buffering effect on burnout.

Design: A cross-sectional, within-group survey study is employed, using a quantitative explorative approach. 105 participants identified as professional health care workers was included. The bio-psychosocial model was used as a theoretical analysing tool.

Results: Results showed a significant positive association between empathic distress and client-related burnout. Compassion was found to be negatively associated with client-related burnout, however, not significant. Multiple regression analysis showed no significant effect of empathic distress, compassion or theory of mind to predict burnout.

Conclusion: Empathic distress was found to be significantly associated with client-related burnout. The study integrated social neuroscience and psychology theories, which can inform health promotion programs within social workplace settings especially for a vulnerable group in risk of burnout such as professional health care workers.