Recent U.S. surveys put nurse burnout prevalence between 35.4% and 53%, depending on the survey population, time period, and definition of burnout used. The 2026 Nurse.com report found that 53% of nurses experienced burnout in the previous two years, while NCSBN reported frequent burnout among 35.4% of RNs in its 2024 national study. A global peer-reviewed benchmark puts emotional-exhaustion prevalence among nurses at 33.45%.

These nursing burnout statistics aren’t in conflict — they measure different things. A “have you experienced burnout in the past two years” question will always catch more people than “do you feel burned out every day or almost every day,” and a worldwide meta-analysis averaged across dozens of countries will land somewhere different than any single national survey. For a hospital leader, the practical takeaway is the same regardless of which figure you use: burnout affects a large, persistent share of the nursing workforce, and the underlying drivers — pay dissatisfaction, unmanageable ratios, unresponsive leadership, and workplace violence — are consistent across every source.

Primary sources checked: Nurse.com’s 2026 Nurse Salary and Work-Life Report, NCSBN’s 2024 National Nursing Workforce Study (Journal of Nursing Regulation, 2025), Nurse.org’s 2026 State of Nursing Survey, and a 2025 peer-reviewed umbrella review in BMC Nursing (PMC). Last verified September 5, 2026.

Nurse Burnout Statistics at a Glance

2026 nursing burnout statistics by category
Category Metric Figure
Burnout prevalence Nurses reporting burnout in past two years (2026) 53%, down from 59% in 2024
RN weekly-or-daily burnout (NCSBN, 2024) 35.4%, down from 45.2% in 2022
LPN/LVN daily burnout (NCSBN, 2024) 21.0%, down from 25.3% in 2022
Global emotional-exhaustion prevalence (peer-reviewed) 33.45%
Intent to leave Considering leaving the profession (Nurse.com, 2026) 24%
Likely to leave within one year (Nurse.org, 2026) 23%, up from roughly 16%
Male nurses considering leaving outright 30% vs. 23% of female nurses
Job satisfaction Overall satisfaction (Nurse.org, year-over-year) 47%, down from 55%
Satisfaction range by specialty 23% (progressive care) to 68% (nurse educators)
Workplace violence Verbal abuse from patients/family (2026) 83%
Intimidation from colleagues 51%
Physically assaulted or abused by patients/family 35%
Staffing & leadership drivers Dissatisfaction with salary/wage policy 49% (top-cited driver)
Unresponsive leadership 48%
Unmanageable nurse-to-patient ratios 48%
Documentation workload 43%

Related: What nurse burnout looks like in practice

How Do Nurse Burnout Rates Compare Across Studies?

Three independent sources report different burnout percentages for roughly the same period — 35.4% (NCSBN, RNs reporting frequent burnout in 2024), 53% (Nurse.com, any burnout reported over a two-year window ending late 2025), and 33.45% (BMC Nursing meta-analysis, pooled globally across many countries and instruments) — and all three can be accurate simultaneously.

Methodology comparison: why nurse burnout statistics differ by source
Source Survey period Population Burnout measure Reported figure
Nurse.com September–October 2025 500+ U.S. nurses (RNs, APRNs, LPNs/LVNs), 2026 report Experienced burnout in the previous two years 53%
NCSBN 2024 Registered nurses, U.S. national workforce study (800,000+ nurses surveyed) Frequent burnout: every day or a few times a week 35.4%
BMC Nursing (umbrella review) Studies published 2017–2023, reviewed through June 2024 International nursing populations across 14 pooled systematic reviews (80,314 nurses) Emotional-exhaustion prevalence (MBI-based) 33.45% (95% CI 27.31–39.59)

NCSBN measures a narrow, high-frequency threshold — “every day or a few times a week” — within a single defined survey year; 15.0% of RNs in that study reported no burnout at all. The Nurse.com figure asks about any burnout experienced across a full two-year lookback window, which mechanically captures more respondents than a “how do you feel right now” question.

The BMC Nursing figure pools 14 systematic reviews and meta-analyses covering 80,314 nurses across multiple countries and instruments — most commonly the Maslach Burnout Inventory — which produces a different baseline than any single national survey. None of these figures is wrong; they answer different questions, about different time windows, using different thresholds.

Related: How burnout translates into nurse turnover

What Is the Leading Cause of Nurse Burnout?

Across the sources reviewed here, no single factor dominates completely, but pay dissatisfaction narrowly leads a cluster of four closely tied drivers:

  • Compensation dissatisfaction is the top-cited driver. 49% of nurses named dissatisfaction with salary or wage-increase policy as a top factor negatively affecting mental health and wellbeing, ahead of every other listed factor in the 2026 Nurse.com report. Pay alone doesn’t resolve burnout on its own, but it consistently ranks as the top-cited factor nurses point to when asked what’s affecting their wellbeing.
  • Leadership responsiveness and staffing ratios are close behind. 48% cited a lack of responsive leadership and 48% cited unmanageable nurse-to-patient ratios as leading contributors to poor mental health.
  • Documentation workload and feeling unheard round out the top five. 43% cited documentation burden and 41% cited not being heard by their organization as contributors.
  • Workplace violence is a major, worsening driver. 83% of nurses experienced verbal abuse from patients or family in the 2026 Nurse.com data — substantially higher than the 2024 survey cycle, per the report — while 51% experienced intimidation from colleagues and 35% experienced physical assault or abuse from patients or family. NCSBN’s separate national study independently lists stress and burnout, workload, understaffing, inadequate salary, and workplace violence among the top reasons nurses intend to leave the workforce, which strengthens confidence in these as consistent, cross-survey drivers rather than artifacts of one instrument.

See the workplace conditions behind nurse burnout for a full breakdown of how these drivers interact.

  1. Burnout has improved from pandemic peaks but remains widespread. NCSBN’s National Nursing Workforce Study — surveying more than 800,000 licensed nurses across 53 U.S. jurisdictions — found the share of RNs feeling burned out every day or a few times a week fell from 45.2% in 2022 to 35.4% in 2024, with 15.0% reporting no burnout at all. LPN/LVN daily burnout similarly dropped from 25.3% to 21.0% over the same period, and reported workloads decreased 20–25% since 2022.
  2. A separate, more recent report shows the same direction but a higher plateau. The 2026 Nurse Salary and Work-Life Report — fielded September–October 2025 among 500-plus nurses — found 53% had experienced burnout in the prior two years, down from 59% in 2024, alongside feeling overwhelmed (62%, down from 68%) and prolonged stress (51%, down from 54%).
  3. The gap between NCSBN’s 35.4% “frequent burnout” figure and Nurse.com’s 53% “any burnout in two years” figure reflects different time windows and thresholds, not a contradiction — see the methodology table above.
  4. A global peer-reviewed benchmark puts nurse burnout in international context. The 2025 BMC Nursing umbrella review found global emotional-exhaustion prevalence of 33.45% (95% CI 27.31–39.59), depersonalization at 25.0%, and low personal accomplishment at 33.49% among nurses worldwide, with the highest emotional exhaustion (39.23%) recorded during the COVID-19 pandemic specifically. U.S. figures sit at or above this global baseline depending on the instrument used.
  5. The most current tracking data suggests 2026 may be a reversal year, not a continuation of recovery. Nurse.org’s State of Nursing survey (n=2,090, fielded February–March 2026) found job satisfaction dropped from 55% to 47% year-over-year, and 48% of nurses said their mental health or stress got worse in the past 12 months, versus only 11% who said it improved. This is a self-selected, non-probability sample drawn from Nurse.org’s own audience, not a government or peer-reviewed study, so it should be read as a directional signal rather than a national estimate.
  6. Compassion fatigue, moral injury, and alarm fatigue accompany burnout at high rates. The 2026 Nurse Salary and Work-Life Report found 51% of nurses reported ethical dilemmas or moral injury, 46% reported compassion fatigue, 46% reported alarm fatigue, and 31% reported depression symptoms in the prior two years. These are self-reported symptom rates from a survey instrument, not clinical diagnoses.

Related: Full guide to nurse burnout

Nurse Burnout, Turnover, and Patient-Care Risk

Burnout and turnover are measured differently, but the data lines up closely. 24% of nurses in the 2026 Nurse.com data are considering leaving the profession, while Nurse.org’s independently fielded tracker puts likely one-year attrition at 23% — up from roughly 16% the year before. NCSBN’s separate national study found more than 138,000 nurses left the workforce since 2022, citing stress, burnout, and retirement as the leading reasons, and 41.5% of nurses with intent to leave within five years selected stress and burnout as the root cause. Three independently fielded surveys pointing the same direction is a stronger signal than any single number on its own.

The connection runs through specific drivers rather than burnout as an abstract feeling. Units with the lowest job satisfaction — progressive care (23%), geriatric care (31%), telemetry and emergency (34–35%) — are the same high-acuity, high-turnover settings prior workforce research already links to elevated emotional exhaustion.

Burnout’s effect on patient care follows a similar pattern in the broader research base: studies outside this dataset have linked nurse burnout to lower patient safety climate ratings, more medication errors, more falls, and more missed or undone care — a separate line of evidence from the prevalence figures above, but one that changes how hospital leaders should weigh these statistics. Burnout isn’t only a workforce metric; it’s a leading indicator of both turnover risk and care-quality risk.

For the financial and operational consequences once burnout converts into an actual resignation, see our nurse turnover guide and calculate the cost of nurse turnover per FTE.

Related: Retention strategies hospitals can use to respond

Nurse Burnout Statistics by Specialty and Demographic

  1. RNs report the highest burden among license types. RNs, who made up 80% of the 2026 Nurse Salary and Work-Life Report’s respondents, reported 62% feeling overwhelmed, 54% burnout, and 52% prolonged stress in the past two years.
  2. LPNs/LVNs show a distinct driver profile. LPNs/LVNs (15% of respondents) reported particularly high rates of salary dissatisfaction and feeling unheard by leadership, even though their raw burnout percentage was not separately isolated in the summary data.
  3. Gender differences run in opposite directions depending on the measure. Female nurses (91% of the 2026 report’s respondents) were more likely to report intimidation from colleagues and verbal abuse from patients or family, both linked to emotional exhaustion. Male nurses (7% of respondents) were more likely to consider leaving the profession outright (30% versus 23% of female nurses), despite negotiating salary more often.
  4. Generation Z and Millennial nurses show financially linked stress patterns. Generation Z nurses (4% of respondents) were the least satisfied with pay and least likely to negotiate it, with flexible scheduling cited as their top reason to stay; Millennials were most likely to cite higher pay as their reason to remain.
  5. Specialty-level satisfaction varies sharply, indirectly tracking burnout risk. Nurse.org’s 2026 tracker found job satisfaction ranged from 68% among nurse educators and 66% among NICU nurses down to 23% among progressive care nurses, 31% among geriatric nurses, and 34–35% among telemetry and emergency nurses — consistent with prior research linking high-acuity, high-turnover units to greater emotional exhaustion.

What Hospital Leaders Should Measure Alongside Burnout Rates

A single burnout percentage tells you less than pairing it with the metrics that explain and predict it. Based on the drivers and patterns in this data, hospital leaders get the clearest picture by tracking:

  • Unit-level staffing ratios against reported overwhelm. Since unmanageable nurse-to-patient ratios (48%) rank among the leading cited drivers, ratio data by unit — not hospital-wide averages — surfaces where burnout risk concentrates.
  • Documentation time per shift. Documentation workload (43%) is a top-five driver that’s directly measurable through EHR time-tracking, unlike more subjective drivers such as feeling unheard.
  • Workplace violence incident rates and reporting follow-through. With 83% verbal abuse exposure and 35% physical assault exposure reported in one 2026 survey, incident-reporting systems with visible follow-through matter — nurse.org’s tracking has found the most common outcome after a reported incident is no action taken.
  • Intent-to-leave, tracked separately from actual turnover. Intent-to-leave figures (24% in Nurse.com’s data, 23% in Nurse.org’s) move faster than turnover data and give leaders an earlier warning signal.
  • Specialty and unit-level job satisfaction, not just organization-wide averages. The 45-point spread between progressive care (23%) and nurse educators (68%) shows that hospital-wide averages can mask units in crisis.

Hospital leaders evaluating next steps can compare nurse retention interventions against their current staffing and measurement plans.

Sources and Methodology

Every figure in the tables above is drawn directly from the primary source and cross-checked against the original report before publication:

Where sources differ in methodology, time window, or threshold, that difference is explained directly in the comparison table rather than averaged into a single number. Figures are reported as published; none have been recalculated or extrapolated.

Reviewed by the Ne Ste Al editorial team. Last verified: September 5, 2026.

Editorial note: This page is educational and reflects publicly available survey and research data current as of publication. It does not replace medical, psychiatric, or licensed mental-health care, and figures should not be treated as a substitute for organization-specific workforce data.

Frequently Asked Questions

What percentage of nurses experience burnout in 2026?

The 2026 Nurse Salary and Work-Life Report found 53% of nurses experienced burnout in the previous two years, down from 59% in 2024. NCSBN’s larger national study found 35.4% of RNs reported frequent (weekly-or-daily) burnout in 2024, a stricter threshold than “any burnout in two years.” A global peer-reviewed meta-analysis puts emotional-exhaustion prevalence at 33.45%.

Is nurse burnout getting better or worse?

Both, depending on the time frame. Burnout fell substantially from pandemic peaks through 2024–2025 across every source checked, but Nurse.org’s most recent tracking survey (fielded February–March 2026) found job satisfaction dropping and mental health worsening year-over-year, suggesting the recovery may have stalled or reversed in early 2026.

What is the number one cause of nurse burnout?

No single factor dominates completely, but dissatisfaction with salary or wage-increase policy (49%) narrowly leads the list, followed closely by unresponsive leadership (48%), unmanageable nurse-to-patient ratios (48%), documentation workload (43%), and not being heard (41%). Workplace violence — experienced by 83% of nurses in verbal form in one 2026 survey — is also a major, worsening contributor.

Does nursing have the highest burnout rate of any profession?

The sources reviewed here don’t include a reliable cross-profession comparison, so this page does not claim nursing has the single highest burnout rate of any occupation. What the data does show clearly is that burnout affects a large, persistent share of the nursing workforce specifically — roughly a third to over half, depending on the measure.

Do burnout rates differ by nursing role or gender?

Yes. RNs reported the highest overwhelm (62%) and burnout (54%) rates among license types in the 2026 report. Male nurses were more likely to consider leaving the profession outright (30% vs. 23% of female nurses), while female nurses reported more workplace intimidation and verbal abuse, both linked to emotional exhaustion.

How many nurses are considering leaving because of burnout?

Nurse.com’s 2026 report found 24% of nurses are considering leaving the profession, while Nurse.org’s independently fielded 2026 tracker found 23% say they’re likely to leave the profession entirely within the next year — up from roughly 16% the year before. NCSBN’s separate national study found more than 138,000 nurses have already left the workforce since 2022, with stress and burnout cited as a leading reason.

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