Psychische Erkrankungen bei den Erwerbstätigen in Deutschland und Konsequenzen für das Betriebliche Gesundheitsmanagement

Burnout is a prolonged response to chronic emotional and interpersonal stressors on the job, and is defined by the three dimensions of exhaustion, cynicism, and inefficacy. The past 25 years of research has established the complexity of the construct, and places the individual stress experience within a larger organizational context of people's relation to their work. Recently, the work on burnout has expanded internationally and has led to new conceptual models. The focus on engagement, the positive antithesis of burnout, promises to yield new perspectives on interventions to alleviate burnout. The social focus of burnout, the solid research basis concerning the syndrome, and its specific ties to the work domain make a distinct and valuable contribution to people's health and well-being.

The experience of burnout has been the focus of much research during the past few decades. Measures have been developed, as have various theoretical models, and research studies from many countries have contributed to a better understanding of the causes and consequences of this occupationally-specific dysphoria. The majority of this work has focused on human service occupations, and particularly health care. Research on the burnout experience for psychiatrists mirrors much of the broader literature, in terms of both sources and outcomes of burnout. But it has also identified some of the unique stressors that mental health professionals face when they are dealing with especially difficult or violent clients. Current issues of particular relevance for psychiatry include the links between burnout and mental illness, the attempts to redefine burnout as simply exhaustion, and the relative dearth of evaluative research on potential interventions to treat and/or prevent burnout. Given that the treatment goal for burnout is usually to enable people to return to their job, and to be successful in their work, psychiatry could make an important contribution by identifying the treatment strategies that would be most effective in achieving that goal.