Burnout isn’t anything new, but just recently, it’s been officially classified as a medical diagnosis by the World Health Organization (WHO). The term “burnout” has actually been used for years, but it was only recently added to the International Classification of Disease (ICD-11), which is the WHO’s handbook for diagnosing diseases.
As explained in the WHO handbook, “Burn-out is a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.” This “occupational phenomenon” as they refer to it, has been placed under “Problems associated with employment or unemployment.”
The handbook also lists what they consider three dimensions to diagnosing burnout, specifically what doctors need to consider and rule out before officially diagnosing it as “burnout” like anxiety, stress, adjustment disorder and mood disorder, to name a few.
What Exactly is Job Burnout?
So how exactly do you know when it’s job burnout that you are going through, and not another type of medical condition? It’s basically explained as a syndrome that occurs from chronic stress in the workplace that has not been managed properly. According to the chair of the department of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, Maria Oquendo, MD, PhD, “While some data suggest prevalence in the 60 percent range, a recent, rigorous analysis showed that the range was from 0-80 percent.”
“This variation is likely due to the many different ways in which burnout is defined. One estimate is that there are 142 different definitions of burnout in the medical literature,” she adds.
What Are the Symptoms of Burnout?
As listed by the ICD-11 handbook, here are the three dimensions that characterize burnout:
- Feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion;
- Increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one’s job; and
- Reduced professional efficacy.
The agency also cites that it is only applied to work or in the occupational context, and should not be associated with other areas of a person’s life.
Because of the other factors that can easily mimic burnout, it makes it that much more difficult to diagnose, explains clinical psychologist and author of the book Family Fit: Find Your Balance in Life, John Mayer, PhD.
How Do You Treat Burnout?
According to Dr. Mayer, the most important key to treat burnout is to remove the patient from their source of stress. He also mentions that this is something that they can do either temporarily, or permanently if needed.
What makes it even more difficult is that most of the time, a person’s source of stress happens to be their source of income as well. In fact, The American Institute of Stress explains, “Numerous studies show that job stress is far and away the major source of stress for American adults and that it has escalated progressively over the past few decades.”
Therefore, for those that are suffering from burnout, it’s important for them to take short breaks from their work or have particular times where they are away from their jobs or workplace. Psychiatrist and author of the book The Power of Different, Gail Saltz, MD, explains that it can be helpful “If despite this it persists, talking with management about ways to inject interest, motivation, stress reduction at work, or to consider a job move if possible.”
Meanwhile, there are other forms of relaxation techniques and mindfulness-based practices that can also help deal with burnout. Although Dr. Oquendo also shared, “whether these interventions work is still the subject of study.”
Yet despite the fact that mental health experts share that making the diagnosis of “burnout” is not an easy one, it’s still a step in the right direction. Dr. Oquendo “applauds” the move but has concerns as well. “The biggest risk for the medicalization of burnout is that treatable, potentially lethal psychiatric conditions might be missed.”
However, Dr. Saltz reiterates, “Making it a medical diagnosis may allow a more formal means of addressing problems that have long been there as well as de-stigmatizing real feelings employees deal with often enough.”
In the end, if you are worried that you could be dealing with burnout, and no matter how much time you take away from work it still isn’t helping, it would be best to speak to a mental health professional to find the best way to deal with your situation.
Find out how you handle stress by participating in this survey from The American Institute of Stress.
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