Objective: To analyze the symptoms of the burnout syndrome in nurses. Methods: Correlational study conducted in a sample of 47 nurses from Arequipa city. Maslach´s Burnout Inventory for human service professions and statistical tests for correlations and comparisons of variables were used. Results: In the group, 21.3% of female nurses presented with severe emotional exhaustion and low personal performance indexes whereas 29.8% had high level of depersonalization. The correlations indicated that the burnout syndrome, the emotional exhaustion and depersonalization were all positively related (p< 0.01). Additionally, the variance analysis showed significant differences in the global scoring of the syndrome depending on the number of years worked at the service. Conclusions: The studied nurses present high levels of burnout syndrome and mainly those who have been working longer at the service or who have been working less than five years.