Burnout is not a diagnosis. No UK guideline defines it, and no professional can give it to you as a condition.
The word covers several different experiences. Burnout at work has an official definition and it stops at the job. Autistic burnout is a separate idea with a separate literature.
Parental burnout is a third thing. Unpaid carers describe a fourth. These pages keep them apart, because the evidence behind each one differs.
What the word does not mean
NICE publishes no guideline on burnout. Its nearest document covers mental wellbeing at work, and it speaks to employers rather than to individuals.
The World Health Organization lists burn-out in ICD-11. It appears as an occupational phenomenon, among the reasons people contact health services. It is not listed as a disease.
That sets a limit on what you can ask for. A professional can work with you on exhaustion, resentment and recovery. Nobody can give you a burnout diagnosis, because there is not one to give.
Why we keep them apart
Lumping the four together would be tidier and less true. The research on work burnout and the research on autistic burnout reach different conclusions about the same question.
Autistic adults who defined their version called it distinct from occupational burnout. Researchers studying the workplace version have argued that its border with depression is thin.
We will not resolve that for you. The autistic burnout and burnout or depression pages carry both sets of citations.
Where to start
If your job is the problem, start with burnout at work. If you are autistic, or think you might be, autistic burnout describes something different.
If you have ADHD, that page is short, because the evidence is thin. If you are raising or caring for someone, parental and carer burnout is the one.
And if you cannot tell burnout from depression, that page holds the disagreement rather than settling it.
ADHD and Burnout
There is no good evidence on ADHD and burnout. One Swedish study of 20 working adults, what it found, and what nobody has measured yet.
Autistic Burnout
Autistic burnout is more than masking. Cumulative load, lost skills, misdiagnosis and what the people who defined it say recovery takes.
Burnout at Work
Burnout has one official definition and it stops at the job. The three dimensions, the UK numbers and what a professional can change.
Burnout or Depression
Is this burnout or depression? The workplace research says the line is fragile. The autistic burnout research says the difference matters.
Parental and Carer Burnout
Parental burnout is measured in four dimensions and it is not depression. What the research says, and what unpaid carers in the UK report.
