[Burn-out in anesthesia and intensive care medicine. Part 1. Clarification and critical evaluation of the term].

Both acute critical life events and circumstances continuously perceived as strenuous may lead to psychomental and somatic symptoms. The term burn-out as an expression for chronic occupational stress has become a popular catchword over the last years. Employees in many occupations feel especially prone to burn-out due to a work environment perceived as increasingly intense and commercialized. Physicians and nurses also appear to be considerably affected by burn-out, including those working in anesthesiology and intensive care medicine. However, there is a scarcity of reliable occupation-specific data to corroborate this notion. Even though the classic concept of burn-out and the Maslach Burnout Inventory have been used for many years, a critical appraisal shows that burn-out has not yet been recognized as a diagnostic entity. Presumably there are other concepts and psychometric instruments more capable of collecting epidemiologic data regarding chronic work-related stress. With enhanced data, perhaps, measures based on principles of public health can be created and evaluated for the prevention and treatment of this condition.