Report: Burnout, Workplace Violence Remain Key Issues for Nurses Nationwide

The American Nurses Foundation has released findings from a new survey, revealing that burnout and workplace violence remain key issues for nurses nationwide. The three-year assessment — known as the Pulse on the Nation’s Nurses Survey Series: Annual Assessment Survey — featured over 12,000 respondents and was completed in Nov. 2022. Titled “Nurses are still lacking support from their employers on key issues,” the report paints a grim picture for the nursing industry.

To start, nurses are not optimistic about their career futures. On a scale of 0-10, the 12,581 respondents averaged a score of 5.6. A total 64% of respondents said they were stressed at work within the past two weeks. Another 60% of respondents said they were frustrated at work, and another 57% felt exhausted. A total 54% of respondents said their emotional health is either neutral, not emotionally healthy or not at all emotionally healthy.

“These data sets reveal nurses need much more support than they are getting from their leadership and employers,” American Nurses Foundation Executive Director Kate Judge said in a news release. “The insights we’ve gleaned from Millennial and GenZ nurse respondents, as well as nurses of color, demonstrate that employers must dramatically shift their approach to supporting nurses, taking into account that different demographics of nursing have unique needs. Nurses leaving the profession, leaving acute care, and being burned out puts our health as a nation at risk.”

Beyond burnout, workplace violence remains a significant problem within hospitals.

“Various forms of workplace violence remain a top issue with 53% of nurse respondents saying verbal abuse has increased,” the foundation reported. “What’s even more troubling is that 43% of nurses say they either don’t have a reporting mechanism in place at their health care system or they are unsure if they have one. Lastly, mostly early tenure nurses who cited burnout as an issue cited a lack of respect from patients as a contributing factor.

(This story originally appeared in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.)