Assessment of Mental Health in Healthcare Personnel: A Review of DASS, MBI, and Zung Scales.

Background/Objectives: Healthcare professionals face high occupational stress, emotional burden, and demanding conditions that increase the risk of burnout, depression, and anxiety, with recent post-pandemic evidence indicating a high and rising global prevalence. Early identification of distress is therefore essential. This review compared three widely used instruments-the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scales (DASS), the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), and the Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale (SDS)-selected because they jointly cover depression, anxiety, stress, and burnout, unlike unidimensional tools (PHQ-9, GAD-7, PSS, CBI) that would need combining for comparable coverage. Methods: A narrative integrative review searched PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, ScienceDirect, and Google Scholar for peer-reviewed articles (English/Croatian) published up to December 2025 (final search: 26 June 2026). Two reviewers independently screened records, resolving disagreements by consensus; quality was appraised narratively. Of 55 records, 35 were included. Results: The DASS showed a replicated three-factor structure and strong reliability, with shortened forms (DASS-8, DASS-12) enabling rapid screening at reduced domain coverage. The MBI remained the most widely used burnout measure but was limited by its emotional-exhaustion focus, proprietary licensing, and scoring heterogeneity. The Zung SDS offered a brief depression screen, though dated wording and context-dependent cut-offs favor initial-screen use. Notably, much evidence is derived from non-healthcare populations-the principal limitation. Conclusions: The instruments appear complementary rather than interchangeable; their combined use is proposed-as a reasonable suggestion from the literature, not an empirically demonstrated finding-as a multidimensional approach, contingent on context, objective, and appropriate cultural validation.