Family practice, like other fields of medicine involving daily direct contact with patients, is rewarding but can lead to burnout. Ideas about burnout have evolved through time and the concepts and terms used have become more refined, and more commonly agreed. Earlier publications were mostly descriptive but later ones have begun to look into possible interventions to combat burnout. Validated scales are increasingly being used as outcome measures of the intervention strategies, some in randomised control trials which have contributed to the evidence base. This paper is an evidence-based review of the definition, causes, and interventions published in current literature indexed in PUBMED.