The Diagnosis of Burnout: Some Challenges

Burnout is a topic of high public and research interest, but debate remains as to how the syndrome should best be defined, measured, and diagnosed. In this article, we overview how issues relating to burnout's definition and measurement as well as the debate surrounding its overlap with depression have led to ambiguity surrounding its diagnostic status. We argue for a broader conceptualization of burnout and detail why we position it as distinct from depression, before providing recommendations for clinicians when considering a burnout diagnosis. We highlight that all measures of burnout risk "false-positive" diagnoses and that they should more be viewed as screening strategies with a definitive diagnosis (of "burning out" or "being burnt out") requiring close clinical assessment and exclusion of alternate psychological and physical conditions.