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Chronic stress at work can lead to burnout, a syndrome defined by the World Health Organization as including exhausted energy, exhaustion, negativity, cynicism and reduced productivity.
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Chronic stress at work can lead to burnout, a syndrome defined by the World Health Organization as including exhausted energy, exhaustion, negativity, cynicism and reduced productivity.
baona / Getty Images
The World Health Organization draws attention to the problem of work-related stress. The group announced this week that it was updating its definition of burnout in the new version of its disease manual, the International Classification of Diseases – ICD-11 – which will come into force in January 2022
The new definition calls this a "syndrome" and specifically links burnout to "chronic stress at work that has not been successfully managed."
Despite previous reports to the contrary, WHO does not classify the problem as a medical condition. He calls burnout a "professional phenomenon" and includes it in a chapter on "factors that affect the state of health or contact with health services".
According to the WHO, burnout is characterized by "a feeling of exhaustion or exhaustion of energy, an increased mental distance from one's work, or a feeling of negativism or cynicism related to his work and reduced professional efficiency ".
Burnout was also part of the previous version of the WHO Handbook on Diseases, ICD-10 in the same category that appears now. But this was simply defined as a "state of vital exhaustion," wrote Tarik Jasarevic, a WHO spokesperson, in an e-mail.
The previous definition "was rather weird between these two words" you're not really sick, but you're not quite able to do your job "", said Torsten Voigt, RWTH sociologist Aachen University in Germany, which published a review of existing studies on burnout in 2017.
The new definition is now more detailed, he says, and although it is not a major change, it gives more legitimacy to people who are suffering from burnout.
"People who suffer from burnout are finally fully recognized as having a serious problem," he said. The new definition could be a step towards facilitating people's help, at least in some European countries, where health professionals rely on CIM he says.
Elaine Cheung, a professor of social and medical sciences at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University, brings clarity to the definition of burnout. "There needs to be a more in-depth critical debate about how we can measure and further define this condition," she said in a statement.
The new criteria also require that, to diagnose burnout, mental health professionals must exclude anxiety, mood disorders, and other stress-related disorders.
Cheung says it's "important to emphasize the distinction between burnout and other mental health issues, such as depression," as this could lead to more focused research on how to prevent and treat the problem.
WHO has also announced plans to begin developing evidence-based guidelines on mental well-being in the workplace.
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