Copyright © 2023 American Nurses Foundation. Reprinted with permission.
Silver Spring, MD—On January 25, 2023, the American Nurses Foundation (the Foundation) released the findings from a new comprehensive survey of more than 12,500 nurses nationwide as part of the Pulse on the Nation’s Nurses Survey Series.1 The results validate the urgent call for consistent and sustainable solutions to support the nursing profession, especially in key areas such as nurse burnout and workplace violence.
“These data sets reveal nurses need much more support than they are getting from their leadership and employers,” said American Nurses Foundation Executive Director Kate Judge. “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.”
Nurses across the United States have been striking and demanding better working conditions from their employers. The continued stress experienced by nurses due to their work environment has pushed an already frail healthcare workforce to the brink of collapse. Despite the ongoing strain of responding to public health crises, nurse respondents in the Foundation’s latest survey say they continue to feel unsupported or not supported enough by their employers, with nurses in large and midsized acute care settings and the younger generation of nurses in particular being affected the most. When asked about employer support and whether their organization cares about their well-being and responds to their complaints, on a scale from 0 to 5, nurses scored their employers 2.8 and 2.6, respectively. Hispanic nurse respondents indicated the lowest perception of organizational support.
Approximately one-third of nurse respondents with less than 10 years’ experience indicated being either not or not at all emotionally healthy, compared with 8% of nurses with 41 to 50 years’ experience. In a striking disconnect between leadership and direct clinical care nurses, the perceived preparedness for a potential viral variant surge or pandemic is significantly lower among bedside nurses (30%, Foundation survey) than among nurse leaders (65%, according to the American Organization for Nurse Leadership 2022 survey).1,2
Various forms of workplace violence remain a top issue with 53% of nurse respondents saying verbal abuse has increased. What is even more troubling is that 43% of nurses say they either do not have a reporting mechanism in place at their healthcare 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.
Read the complete report from the Foundation at www.nursingworld.org/practice-policy/work-environment/health-safety/disaster-preparedness/coronavirus/what-you-need-to-know/annual-survey--third-year/.
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