Background: Burnout is a chronic occupational condition characterized by emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced professional efficacy, now recognized by the World Health Organization in the ICD-11. While burnout has been extensively studied among frontline healthcare providers, nurse leaders face unique and understudied challenges contributing to their vulnerability.
Purpose: To explore the prevalence, experience, and contributing factors of burnout in a national sample of nurse leaders.
Methods: This study involved a national survey using a cross-sectional mixed-methods design The survey incorporated the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory and open-ended qualitative questions and was distributed electronically through email, professional organizations' platforms, and social media, and further disseminated via snowball sampling Quantitiave data was reported using descriptive statistics and differences between demographic groups were elvauated using the Mann-Whitney test. Qualitative data were analyzed using thematic analysis.
Results: A total of 145 responses were received. The results demonstrated an overall low level of burnout (49.28%). Burnout levels were moderate in the personal (66.75%) and work (55.62%) domains, and lowest in the client domain (25.01%). There were no significant differences between demographic groups.
Conclusion: The findings of low burnout levels may indicate that burnout among nurse leaders is decreasing in the post-COVID era, following similar trends to those observed in other groups. The higher burnout levels in both personal and work domains suggest that improvement efforts should focus on enhancing work-life balance, promoting self-care, and improving the work environment.
