Burnout among Nurses

Dyrbye et al conducted a national survey of the US nurses (response rate 26.2%) and found that 35.3% had burnout symptoms. Interestingly, 30.7% of the respondents also had symptoms of depression. Quite interestingly, authors found that nurses who had higher burnout were more likely to have been absent 1 or more days during the last month and had poor work-performance.

Critique: Authors need to be commended for conducting a national study of nurses. However, this study has the same issue that we find in other burnout literature; person who is burnout is also the one who determines if they have poor performance or not. At least theoretically, one would assume that a person who is burnout will look more negatively towards themselves and their work than a person who is not burned out; we would expect a high correlation between the two. On the other hand, a study in which nurses’ superiors could have been asked to comment on performance would have generated more reliable data, however, such study would have been quite expensive requiring significant external funding.