It's counterintuitive to me that a more specific concept/subgroup of a phenomenon would be less useful than a larger catch-all category. Is the self-rated quest

It's counterintuitive to me that a more specific concept/subgroup of a phenomenon would be less useful than a larger catch-all category. Is the self-rated questionnaire depression scale used in this study a good "rigorously operationalized concept"? We are successfully treating people with this exact kind of indication/operationalization with real success already. For instance, the indication criteria for ECT basically follow the "burnout profile" I described above, with the addition of "treatment resistant to therapy and medication," and it has shown by far the best effectiveness for that kind of depression. I completely disagree that it's not possible to operationalize the concepts above, for instance with standard BDI or MADRS, supplemented with a ratio with a cutoff to indicate a large fall in everyday functioning. Like an extremely large fall in Global Functioning Scale (GAF) localized to a distinct and pattern-breaking period in a person's life. If you think that these concepts are fuzzy and qualitative, I really hope you have even greater criticism towards this study, not to speak of concepts like anxiety, trauma, and ADHD, which are completely off the rails when it comes to diffuseness and subjectivity. But even if you are right, that burnout-depression and existential anxiety are not possible to study because of their vagueness, it still would not make this study helpful as it's presented. Or am I mistaken? Do you think it's a good and helpful study, whose implications I should fight for in our clinic? And would I see a marked improvement in our patients, compared to SSRIs for the "Depression" group? I am willing to admit I am wrong. The only goal is to actually help people.