Talk:Occupational burnout/Archives/2015

Merge proposal
Merge with burnout (psychology)? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Andycjp (talk • contribs) 06:06, 4 February 2010‎

I was just about to suggest the same. I think that there is a great deal of overlap here and a merge of the two articles would be sensible.Mrm7171 (talk) 08:49, 2 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Oppose merge of occupational burnout into burnout (psychology), but might support reverse-merge of burnout (psychology) into occupational burnout. The article called burnout (psychology) has a strong focus on the "medical condition" of burnout as a "mental state" (see mental status examination), which it seems is not fully recognized as actually being a medical condition (according to what I read in wikipedia today anyways :-)   whereas the article currently called occupational burnout is more about the colloquial phenomenon with a strong focus on the  business management aspect.  These *are* different aspects of the same thing (employee burnout), albeit tightly related, because in one case a psychologist is required to diagnose and treat burnout, whereas in another case burnout is no big deal, and can be corrected in the obvious way by a supervisor in charge of schedules and assignments and such.  This is the medic versus the manager, in other words, or the medical literature versus the business literature if you prefer to think in terms of WP:RS (always a wise approach!).
 * For comparison, consider fatigue for a truck-driver and stress for an air-traffic-controller which are occupational problems that may or may not require a degree in psychology/psychiatry/medicine to solve. In the first example, we have Fatigue_(medical) and Fatigue_(safety) as separate articles, because one is for medics and the other is for managers.  Similarly, in the second example we have Stress_(physiology) and Stress_(psychological) (plus also Stress_(biology)), again because one is for medics and one is for managers.
 * Burnout is a term from the physical world, describing what happens to tires. Fatigue is the same, describing what happens to metals.  Stress is the same, describing what happens to materials.  We have separate medic&manager articles on fatigue and stress, partly because there is a clear separation:  the concepts are *recognized* as medical terms.  Burnout is a toss-up, where it is only partly recognized as a medical term (rather than a fuzzy colloquial term like "innovative" that managers often use to describe things).
 * So, if the burnout articles *are* kept separate as they are now, that arrangement of the material will match our existing pattern for stress & fatigue. To solve the overlap issue, stuff that is clearly medical-oriented (like the "RAS" jargon), should be moved wholesale over into the burnout (psychology) article.  Stuff that is clearly non-medical-oriented, should be moved out of the burnout (psychology) article and into this article.  At the top of the burnout (psychology) article, there would be a short section summarizing the general phenomena, and linking to occupational burnout as the main article.  Similarly, at the bottom of the occupational burnout article, there would be a short section summarizing the medical/psychiatric view of burnout, and again linking to the burnout (psychology) article as the main one for *that* aspect of the topic.
 * On the other hand, if the two main burnout-articles are merged, I strongly suggest that occupational burnout be the main title (it uncontroversially exists in the literature whereas the psychiatric sense of "burnout" is less firmly entrenched/accepted/whatever... compared to fatigue & stress anyways). Furthermore, the content in the newly-merged-article should remain separated into clearly demarcated sections, with the psychiatric&psychology material being kept in a section at the bottom, separate from the colloquial&managerial stuff. If the two main burnout-articles are merged, but the title of occupational burnout is not acceptable as the main title for both the managerial and the medical concepts, then I would suggest using burnout (in humans) or perhaps just burnout (humans) as a new title for the merged material (with redirects to the appropriate #sections of course).  Hope this helps, and thanks for improving wikipedia, folks.  74.192.84.101 (talk) 15:22, 3 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree with your reverse merge option if a merge was to happen at all. Reading through your comments I also understand your logic on these medical points and the blurring of lines between the concept of burnout similar to the concept of stress and their various settings. Also burnout from my understanding is not a formal psychiatric condition although it is often seen as a medical condition resulting from prolonged levels of stress. I think the problem we have here with both concepts, is definitional. I am now tending toward keeping these two articles separate. I'm not sure if merging would benefit Wikipedia? Thanks for your insightful comments.Mrm7171 (talk) 03:48, 4 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm unclear on what is best here, as well. :-)    I suggest a couple things.  First, let us leave this open for a bit.  Maybe some others will come by, and show us where I got it all wrong.  :-)    If nobody shows up, then rather than merge immediately at the end of the WP:DEADLINE that whatamidoing's tags have set, we could instead start by doing some content-moves.
 * So the second suggestion is: at that time, start by shifting the RAS section out of occupational burnout, and over to burnout (psychology).  The next day, shift some of the not-really-psychiatry-related-overview-stuff at the burnout (psychology) article, over to the occupational burnout article.  There's no hurry, you can make these small but substantive changes once per evening or something.  If people notice and complain, then we can revert the content-moves temporarily, and re-open the discussion of whether to merge x into y, merge y into x, or keep separate (and if so *what* to put in each article).
 * And yes... the really big question, is not whether to merge or not merge our two articles on burnout... but how to treat the inter-related topics of stress, fatigue, burnout, and other such things properly. Colloquially, it is certainly true that high-stress jobs lead to burnout, more than low-stress jobs.  But what about burger-flippers?  That is colloquially low-stress... but also low-satisfaction, and low-freedom.  People get burned out on burgers (in the colloquial sense not the psychiatric sense) pretty quickly; it is a high-turnover job.  Running your own brokerage is certainly high-stress, but it is also high-reward and high-freedom, so few people give it up willingly.  This is a complex area!
 * Of course, the really hard question is how do we write for the satisfaction of the various types of readership... without getting burned out on this wiki-task ourselves. ;-)    Feel free to drop me on my talkpage, if you need me for something.  I don't have a watchlist as an anon, but I'll try to remember to peek back here from time to time.  No harm in joggling my elbow, though, if need be.  Nice to meet you, and thanks for improving wikipedia. &mdash; 74.192.84.101 (talk) 05:04, 4 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree it is a difficult task and important that we deal these interrelated topics and often poorly defined topics adequately. I was also going to suggest perhaps taking relevant sections from the burnout(psychology) article and placing them in this article, where possible and appropriate. Alternatively keeping a cursory sentence in the burnout (psychology) article with a link to this article. Anyway I'm happy to work on this project gradually and I think it is a worthwhile pursuit. It may also be of benefit to get some input from medical editors on these interrelationships between concepts like stress, burnout and fatigue? Each are considered in both occupational and psych/medical contexts. Anyway as you said, it would be wise to keep it here sitting for a while first, before anything definite. Thanks.Mrm7171 (talk) 03:50, 5 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Agreed with 74. Vectro (talk) 13:02, 5 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Agree to merging these overlapping concepts. Do not mind about the title of the merged article that might result. Lesion  ( talk ) 00:44, 14 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Thanks Lesion & Vectro. Looks like a merge between burnout & this occupational burnout article is supported. Will leave here for a bit longer before starting that process.Mrm7171 (talk) 03:46, 3 April 2014 (UTC)


 * I support just one article entitled, as suggested above by 74.192.84.101, Burnout (human) or, possibly, Burnout (in humans) or Burnout in humans. (I think readers will search first on 'burnout', not 'occupational' in any case.) There is a great deal of overlap, so I don't think the resulting article would be too long.  The word is used in many contexts, even if primarily with regard to gainful employment. --Hordaland (talk) 03:00, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Greetings from one year later! I will be carrying out the merger of these two articles: burnout (psychology) into occupational burnout, as discussed above. (I may suggest a rename to job burnout, since that term seems to be more common in the literature.) James Hare (NIOSH) (talk) 17:20, 9 September 2015 (UTC)