Burn out from work now recognised as a medical condition

Are you one of those notorious employees who constantly fakes a cold or severe headache to boycott work? Maybe this news would make your day.

You can now get a doctor’s sheet ordering you to rest after being diagnosed with ‘burn out.'

This is one of the conditions recognized by the global health body in its latest classification of diseases.

In the list, World Health Organisation (WHO) has categorized ‘burn out’ as a syndrome and has linked it to the environment around employment and unemployment.

“Burn-out is a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed,” reads the definition by WHO.

The global health body has categorized three ways in which burn out can exhibit itself among individuals namely feelings of energy depletion or general exhaustion, increased mental distance from one’s job or feeling of negativity or cynicism towards one’s job and reduced professional efficacy.

However, WHO cautions that burn out diagnosis should solely be made based on the above criteria.

“Burn-out refers specifically to phenomena in the occupational context and should not be applied to describe experiences in other areas of life,” said WHO in the International Classification of Diseases ICD 11.

In this case, the global health body has been keen to leave out some diseases and conditions that may cause burn out but do not necessarily happen in the context of   employment and unemployment.

WHO has excluded burn out diagnosis not to include adjustment disorder, disorders specifically associated with stress, anxiety or fear related disorders and mood disorders.

The above are to be handle as separate conditions with different set of symptoms.

WHO defines a health job as where pressures on employees are appropriate in relation to their abilities and resources?

Work related   stress, says WHO, is the response people may have when presented with work demands and pressures not matching their knowledge or abilities, and in cases of little or no support from supervisors or colleagues.

Globally, Japan and China are known for long working hours. For example, in China, tech companies require staff to work for 9am to 9pm six days a week as reported by The Guardian.

In Japan labour market, it is almost not news when one dies from overwork which is famously known as ‘karoshi’ to mean death from overwork.

Karoshi is usually caused by heart attacks, starvation or stroke.