Furthermore, even if burnout were indeed a culture‐bound syndrome, this would not necessarily argue against its listing in classification systems, since psychiatry has long categorized many culture‐bound syndromes (e.g., koro).Ī second point has been that burnout is a “new” phenomenon. On the contrary, there are reports of high burnout rates in Africa, South America and Asia 1. The first argument has been that burnout is solely a Western cultural phenomenon – in effect, a culture‐bound syndrome. In opposition, we offer a case for its formal listing by responding to the arguments put forward in that review and in other papers which may have prevented burnout from being accorded such recognition. It currently lacks formal status as a mental disorder, not being listed in the DSM‐5 and being simply positioned as an “occupational phenomenon” in the ICD‐11, despite having a general population prevalence in the order of 30%, being debilitating, costing over US$ 300 billion/year to the global economy, and having status as an occupational “disease” in several European countries 1.Ī recent review 2 concluded that “it would be inappropriate, if not premature, to introduce burnout as a distinct mental disorder within any existing diagnostic classificatory system”.
Burnout is variably viewed as a social phenomenon, a psychological state, or a clinical condition.
