Need to Differentiate Between Doctors’ and Patients’ Perspectives

Abstract

Comments on an article by Wolfgang P. Kaschka, Dieter Korczak & Karl Broich (see record 2011-28936-001). Kaschka et al. cite the review of a health technology assessment (HTA) commissioned by the German Institute for Medical Documentation and Information on burnout, which primarily complains about the lack of standardized diagnostic criteria. A fundamentally different perspective thus remains overlooked and burnout patients define burnout as a paradigm describing an impaired ability to perform and general malaise, providing an explanation, and providing an excuse. Experiencing burnout reflects primarily a subjective disturbance model in those affected. Burnout is substantially more than a fashionable diagnosis. The phenomenon presents an existential challenge for today's medicine, which is fixated on scientific criteria. On the one hand, there is a risk that doctors with a "customer friendly" focus uncritically jump on the "burnout wagon," which may increase turnover in the short term but would result in a loss of long-established diagnostic and therapeutic standards. The challenge is to find a balance between medical necessities and patients' needs that is fit for purpose in our time. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved)