Key Takeaways
Burnout Prevalence Among Healthcare Workers: Nearly half of surveyed healthcare workers (49.9%) met the criteria for burnout, reflecting the widespread and critical nature of the issue within the sector.
Impact of Work Overload: Work overload was identified as the strongest predictor of burnout across all healthcare roles, increasing the risk of burnout by up to 2.90 times in non-clinical staff and significantly affecting both clinical and non-clinical roles.
Burnout Rates Among Specific Roles: Nurses reported the highest rates of burnout, with 56.0% meeting burnout criteria, followed by clinical staff excluding physicians and nurses at 54.1% and physicians at 47.3%.
Intent to Leave: Among nurses, 41.0% expressed a strong intent to leave their jobs within two years, the highest rate among healthcare roles, highlighting workforce instability.
Emotional and Physical Exhaustion: Emotional exhaustion was reported by 54% of healthcare workers as a significant contributor to burnout, while 35.5% reported physical exhaustion to a very high degree, further exacerbating workplace challenges.
Prevalence of Burnout in Healthcare Roles
Burnout levels among healthcare professionals range from 16% to 86%, with an average burnout score of 57.4%.
Moderate burnout affects 61.2% of healthcare professionals, low burnout affects 29%, and high burnout affects 9.6%.
Among doctors, 75% experience low burnout, and 25% experience high burnout.
Moderate burnout affects 72.7% of allied health professionals, low burnout affects 18.1% and high burnout affects 9%.
Among nurses, 68.7% report moderate burnout, 25% report low burnout, and 6% report high burnout.
In 2022, 46% of health workers reported often feeling burned out, compared to 32% in 2018.
A survey of 40,301 healthcare workers, representing 93.6% of the total sample, found that nearly half of respondents experienced burnout.
Among the healthcare workers surveyed, 49.9% (21,469 individuals) met the criteria for burnout, indicating a widespread issue within the sector.
Nurses reported high rates of burnout, with 56% (5,672 out of 10,122 nurses) meeting burnout criteria.
Clinical staff, excluding physicians and nurses, reported a burnout rate of 54.1% (2,928 out of 5,415 clinical staff), highlighting high stress levels in this group.
Among surveyed physicians, 47.3% (6,514 out of 13,780) met the criteria for burnout, reflecting nearly half of the physician workforce experiencing significant stress.
Non-clinical healthcare staff, such as administrative personnel, reported a burnout rate of 45.6% (5015 out of 11,005 non-clinical staff), demonstrating that burnout is not limited to direct patient care roles.
Work overload was associated with a 2.90 times greater risk of burnout for non-clinical healthcare staff.
Nurses experiencing work overload were at significantly higher risk of burnout.
Intent to Leave the Job
Of the 15,465 healthcare workers (35.9% of the sample) who responded to the survey's question about their intent to leave their jobs, 28.7% expressed a high likelihood of leaving their roles.
Nurses were the most likely among healthcare roles to express an intent to leave their jobs, with 41.0% (935 out of 2,280 nurses surveyed on this topic) planning to leave within two years.
Clinical staff excluding nurses and physicians reported an intent-to-leave rate of 32% (565 out of 1,759 respondents), showing significant workforce instability in this group.
Among non-clinical healthcare staff, 32.6% (662 out of 2,033 respondents) expressed a strong intent to leave their jobs, indicating turnover challenges even in non-patient-facing roles.
Physicians were the least likely to plan to leave, but 24.3% (2,280 out of 9,393 responding physicians) still reported a high likelihood of leaving their roles within two years.
Impact of Work Overload
Work overload was identified as the strongest predictor of burnout across all healthcare roles, increasing the risk of burnout by up to 2.90 times in non-clinical staff.
Work overload also independently increased the likelihood of healthcare workers expressing a strong intent to leave their jobs, with non-clinical staff experiencing up to a 2.10 times greater risk of intent to leave.
Non-physician and non-nurse clinical staff reported the highest prevalence of work overload among healthcare roles, with 47.4% (2,715 out of 5,728 individuals) feeling overburdened.
Among surveyed nurses, 47% (5,164 out of 11,011) reported experiencing work overload, indicating nearly half of this critical workforce feels overburdened by their responsibilities.
Among non-clinical healthcare staff, 44.5% (4941 out of 11,103 respondents) reported experiencing work overload, underscoring stress in administrative and support roles.
Among surveyed physicians, 37.1% (5,616 out of 15,137) reported experiencing work overload, representing over a third of doctors feeling overburdened by their duties.
Demographics and Burnout
For non-clinical healthcare staff, work overload was associated with a 2.90 times greater risk of burnout, with a 95% confidence interval of 2.77 to 3.05, representing the highest risk among all groups surveyed.
Physicians experiencing work overload were at a 2.42 times greater risk of burnout compared to their peers without work overload, with a 95% confidence interval of 2.33 to 2.50.
Among non-physician and non-nurse clinical staff, work overload was associated with a 2.29 times greater risk of burnout, with a 95% confidence interval of 2.16 to 2.43.
Nurses experiencing work overload were 2.21 times more likely to experience burnout compared to those without work overload, with a 95% confidence interval of 2.12 to 2.30.
Male healthcare professionals have an average burnout score of 60%, while females have an average burnout score of 56%.
Healthcare workers aged 30–39 years report the highest average burnout scores, while those aged 20–29 years report the lowest.
Nurses’ age is significantly positively correlated with burnout scores (r = 0.56, p = 0.025).
Age is weakly positively correlated with burnout scores among healthcare workers (r = 0.16, p = 0.387).
Duration of work is weakly positively correlated with burnout scores (r = 0.11, p = 0.955).
Among nurses, duration of work is weakly positively correlated with burnout scores (r = 0.20, p = 0.452).
Allied health professionals with high burnout are all male, aged 40–49 years, and have worked at their hospital for more than 10 years.
Nurses with high burnout are aged 40–49 years and have worked at their hospital for more than 10 years.
Among doctors with high burnout, all are aged 20–29 years and have worked at their hospital for 1–3 years.
Emotional and Physical Exhaustion
Physical exhaustion is linked to burnout, with 35.5% of healthcare professionals reporting it to a very high degree and 32.3% to a high degree.
Emotional exhaustion is a major contributor to burnout, with 54% of healthcare workers reporting high levels of emotional attachment to patients and 32.3% describing their work as emotionally exhausting to a very high degree.
Work overload also independently increased the likelihood of healthcare workers expressing a strong intent to leave their jobs, with non-clinical staff experiencing up to a 2.10 times greater risk of intent to leave.
Clinical staff excluding nurses and physicians were 2.04 times more likely to plan to leave their roles if experiencing work overload, with a 95% confidence interval of 1.74 to 2.38.
Nurses experiencing work overload were 1.87 times more likely to report an intent to leave compared to those without work overload, with a 95% confidence interval of 1.65 to 2.11.
Physicians experiencing work overload were 1.73 times more likely to express a strong intent to leave their jobs compared to those without work overload, with a 95% confidence interval of 1.61 to 1.87.
Frustrations in Patient Care and Interactions
Limitations in patient care are associated with burnout, with 58.1% of healthcare workers finding these limitations frustrating to a very high degree and 19.4% to a high degree.
Burnout is linked to difficulties in working with patients, with 45.2% of healthcare workers finding it somewhat frustrating and 22.6% finding it frustrating to a low degree.
Among healthcare workers experiencing moderate burnout, 79% report sometimes finding it frustrating to work with patients, and 10.4% report frustration to a high or very high degree.
Among individuals with high burnout, 66.6% report sometimes finding it frustrating to work with patients, while 33.3% report frustration to a high degree.
Among nurses experiencing work overload, 53.4% working in inpatient settings expressed a strong intent to leave their jobs, compared to 45.2% in outpatient settings, a statistically significant difference.
Among physicians experiencing work overload, 34.3% working in inpatient settings expressed a strong intent to leave their jobs, compared to 31.1% in outpatient settings, a statistically significant difference.
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