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This page is an AI-assisted Turkish summary of the study presented at the 26th World Congress of Psychiatry. The study belongs to the presenting authors; please refer to the original source when citing it.

EV0299

Burnout wars: debates over the concept of burnout

BURNOUT WARS – CONTROVERSIES ON THE CONCEPT OF BURNOUT

At the heart of the debate over whether burnout is a distinct condition or a form of depression associated with working conditions lie the different priorities the opposing sides assign to epistemic or pragmatic values.

The study aims to demonstrate whether a values-based perspective can contribute to debates over the concept of burnout, which has been in use since the 1970s but whose definition and measurement remain without consensus despite more than 50 years of research. The method involved examining two texts that take opposing positions—an article by Bianchi and Schonfeld (Work and Stress, 2025) and a direct response by Leiter and Day (Work and Stress, 2025)—using the framework for values analysis proposed by Sadler (1997). The two beliefs under debate are that burnout is work-related (Bianchi and Schonfeld argue that its symptoms can also arise independently of stressful working conditions, whereas Leiter and Day maintain that work-related stress is what defines burnout) and that burnout is not a depressive condition (Bianchi and Schonfeld regard burnout as a form of depression associated with working conditions, whereas Leiter and Day defend the distinction on the basis of the evidence as a whole). According to the analysis, Bianchi and Schonfeld prioritize epistemic values such as discriminant validity and classificatory consistency, as well as alignment with the DSM, whereas Leiter and Day place greater weight on pragmatic values that foreground burnout’s relationship to work. The opposing sides attach different value implications to the classification options: Bianchi and Schonfeld emphasize the potential harm of delaying appropriate treatment by labeling depression as burnout, whereas Leiter and Day emphasize the harm of failing to recognize work-related suffering. In conclusion, burnout is a plural phenomenon with differing definitions. Because the evidence is not clearly decisive, recognizing that an emphasis on epistemic or pragmatic values privileges individual psychopathology or work-relatedness, respectively, may reveal the implicit factors shaping practitioners’ and researchers’ views.

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