Burn-out refers to a phenomenon typical of those professions that have in their mandate the connotation of being “helpful to others.”
Implicit in these professions is a direct relationship between practitioner and user. This term is also used to express psychophysical subsidence from the difficulties of professional activity. This phenomenon underscores one or more aspects of the way in which practitioners’ resources are being depleted as they slowly try to adapt to the difficulties of their work. It appears difficult to draw a line separating normal working condition and burnout. It is believed that any work environment is loaded with stress, in fact even when operating under the best possible conditions the professional role still carries an emotional load.
Burn-out syndrome does not arise suddenly, but starts with the first episodes of defeat, until it becomes a condition that results in the exhaustion of the worker’s resources. This phenomenon can have different gradations and based on Hans Selye ‘s stress response model can be described thus:
- Work stress
- Exhaustion
- Defensive conclusion
Job stress is defined as the imbalance that is to be created between the available resources and the demands that come to the individual Both from the outside world and the inside world. The imbalance is created when the available resources are no longer sufficient to meet its goals. The work environment is experienced as exhausting and wearing. The answer defensive at this point becomes inevitable: there are negative changes In attitude not only toward themselves, but also toward colleagues and toward users.
Clinically, the signs and symptoms of burn-out are many and are reminiscent of anxiety spectrum disorders.
Source: I don’t have time for… How it wears out care: health workers under stress by Ferdinando Pellegrino
