[Burnout and the health of the medical professionals: review and preventive options].

The relevance of stress on health is an increasing interest, as well as the growth of job stress in general and specifically of the medical job stress. A consequence is the rise of medical burnout. Though burnout rates can change depending on organizational contexts and specific samples, all the information indicates high rates of prevalence in the medical population. Consequences of the syndrome are wide and important, and affect mental health, physical health, quality of life and efficiency of physicians. This situation raises the need to develop programmes of prevention and intervention that help to control and to relieve such effects following the suggestions of the European Union.