Should Burnout Be Conceptualized as a Mental Disorder?

Abstract

Burnout is generally acknowledged by researchers, clinicians, and the public as a pervasive occupational difficulty. Despite this widespread recognition, longstanding debates remain within the scientific community regarding its definition and the appropriateness of classifying burnout as its own pathological entity. The current review seeks to address whether burnout should (or could) be characterized as a distinctive mental disorder to shed light on this debate. After briefly reviewing the history, theoretical underpinnings, and measurement of burnout, we more systematically consider the current evidence for and against its classification as a mental disorder within existing diagnostic systems. Stemming from a lack of conceptual clarity, the current state of burnout research remains, unfortunately, largely circular and riddled with measurement issues. As a result, information regarding the unique biopsychosocial etiology, diagnostic features, differential diagnostic criteria, and prevalence rates of burnout are still lacking. Therefore, we conclude that it would be inappropriate, if not premature, to introduce burnout as a distinct mental disorder within any existing diagnostic classification system. We argue, however, that it would be equally premature to discard burnout as a psychologically relevant phenomenon and that current evidence does support its relevance as an important occupational syndrome. We finally offer several avenues for future research, calling for cross-national collaboration to clarify conceptual and measurement issues while avoiding the reification of outdated definitions. In doing so, we hope that it one day becomes possible to more systematically re-assess the relevance of burnout as a distinctive diagnostic category.