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Cited by 112Stress and Burnout ResearchOccupational Health and BurnoutHealthcare professionals’ stress and burnout

Should Burnout Be Conceptualized as a Mental Disorder?

Open access
Nadon, Lindsey, De Beer, Leon T., Morin, Alexandre J. S.·2022·Behavioral Sciences
DOI 10.3390/bs12030082PMC PMC8945132
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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calling for cross-national collaboration to clarify conceptual and measurement issues while avoiding the reification of outdated definitions.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.

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  • There is an ongoing debate as to whether ENTS should be considered a disorder on its own or whether it should be a part of depression.

    “There is an ongoing debate as to whether ENTS should be considered a disorder on its own or whether it should be a part of depression, with diverging evidence currently supporting both positions [26–32].”

    From Psychological Treatment of Exhaustion Due to Persistent Non-Traumatic Stress: A Scoping Review. (2024) · cites this paper as [32]

    Section 6 discusses whether burnout is distinct from depression or is work-specific depression, and Section 7 discusses whether burnout warrants its own diagnostic category. The claim instead concerns ENTS; a search for ENTS found no passage identifying it with burnout or addressing its classification. (LLM, conf=0.72)

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1 of the 104 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Research works printed but not linked: 7

  1. [2]Moss J. The Burnout Epidemic: The Rise of Chronic Stress and How We Can Fix It Harvard Business Press Boston, MA, USA 2021
  2. [18]Maslach C. Detached concern in health and social service professions Proceedings of the 81st Annual meetings of the American Psychological Association Montreal, QC, Canada 27–31 August 1973
  3. [22]Schaufeli W.B. Leiter M.P. Maslach C. Jackson S.E. The MBI-General Survey Maslach Burnout Inventory Manual 3rd ed. Maslach C. Jackson S.E. Leiter M.P. Consulting Psychologists Press Palo Alto, CA, USA 1996 19 26
  4. [41]Gauche C. De Beer L.T. Investigating the longitudinal relationships between burnout, work engagement and objective performance ratings: A cross-lagged model Proceedings of the Communication presented at the International Business Conference Le Meredien, Mauritius 24–26 September 2018
  5. [61]Bakker A.B. Demerouti E. Job demands-resources theory Wellbeing: A Complete Reference Guide Chen P. Cooper C.L. Wiley Oxford, UK 2014 37 64
  6. [71]Maslach C. Jackson S.E. Leiter M.P. Maslach Burnout Inventory Manual Consulting Psychologists Press Palo Alto, CA, USA 1986
  7. [99]Maslach C. Jackson S.E. Leiter M.P. MBI: Maslach Burnout Inventory 3rd ed. Consulting Psychologists Press Palo Alto, CA, USA 1996

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Authors
Nadon, L., De Beer, L. T., & Morin, A. J. S.
Affiliations
  • Concordia University (CA)
  • WorkWell Research Unit, Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences, North-West University, Potchefstroom 2531, South Africa
ORCID
Venue
Behavioral Sciences
Publisher
MDPI AG
Published
2022-03-17
Volume
12
Issue
3
Pages
82
ISSN
2076-328X (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.3390/bs12030082
PMC
PMC8945132
OpenAlex
W4221007412
Cited by
112
References
104
Citations by year
2026: 26 · 2025: 23 · 2024: 31 · 2023: 25 · 2022: 7
FWCI
3.22
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Behavioral Sciences (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
Funders
  • Fonds de Recherche du Québec – Société et Culture (FRQSC) (FRQSC 2019-SE1-252542)
  • Social Science and Humanity Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) (SSHRC 435-2018-0368)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Stress and Burnout Research
  • Health Sciences › Health Professions › Occupational Therapy › Occupational Health and Burnout
  • Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Healthcare professionals’ stress and burnout
Keywords
burnout, mental disorder classification, diagnostic classification systems, differential diagnosis, burnout prevalence

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