New perspectives: towards an integration of the concept "burnout" and its explanatory models

During the last 30 years, as the concept "burnout" has evolved, multiple definitions and models of the concept "burnout" have appeared and been used to account for the phenomenon of the burn out syndrome. However, none of these has tackled the phenomenon from an integrating perspective. Based on the historical evolution of the the concept "burnout" and on the study of the different models that try to account for it, we propose a more global definition of the term together with a more parsimoniuos explanatory model of the burn out syndrome. From our point of view, in a definition of "burnout" we need to highlight the subject's expectations, his/her concept of equity, and the quality of his/her interpersonal relations. We belive that the burn out syndrome is the result of unfulfilled expectations which leads to demotivation and robot-like behaviour. When explaining the syndrome, we need to consider that the individual owns a set of inputs that simultaneously undergo a series of personal and working stress factors that interact resulting in an output that will lead to the appearance of burnout.