Nurse burnout in a high stress health care environment: prognosis better than expected?

Abstract

This article presents literature-based evidence from North America, Canada, Israel, England and Wales, New Zealand, Australia demonstrating that despite data showing that occupational stress levels are rising in nursing, and given that nursing is an endemically stressful profession, there does not seem to be a widespread concomitant increase in reported severity of burnout. Instead, many instances of low, decreasing and in some cases, virtually nonexistent degrees of burnout exist. Two theoretical explanations for the existence of low burnout and the implications for the nursing profession are discussed.