Professional burnout - a comparative analysis considering the key sectors in Poland The article presents the results of empirical research referring to the problem of burnout caused by professional burnout among staff of the most significant sectors in Poland. The authors presents the first part of the research project which also covered re-examination conducted after the interval of nine months. The research focused at the search for predictors of the phenomenon of burnout which - according to the latest concept of Maslach and Leiter - are as follows: emotional exhaustion, cynicism ad a reduced sense of personal achievements. With the application of neural networks, both the impact of organisational factors (organisational climate, experience of organisational stress) as well as personality-based factors onto the presence of professional burnout was verified. The main application conclusions resulted from the first stage of the research were presented at the end of the article.