“I feel broken”: Chronicling burnout, mental health, and the limits of individual resilience in nursing

• Published in: Nursing inquiry 2024-04, Vol.31 (2), p.e12609-n/a
• Main Authors: Akoo, Chaman, McMillan, Kimberly, Price, Sheri, Ingraham, Kenchera, Ayoub, Abby, Rolle Sands, Shamel, Shankland, Mylène, Bourgeault, Ivy
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Burnout; Burnout, Professional - psychology; Canada; COVID‐19; Health care industry; Health Personnel; health systems; Humans; Intervention; Leaves of absence; Medical personnel; Mental Health; Nurses; Nursing; Pandemics; Psychiatric nurses; qualitative research; Resilience; Resilience, Psychological; Return to work; Workplaces
• ISSN: 1320-7881; 1440-1800; 1440-1800
• DOI: 10.1111/nin.12609

Healthcare systems and health professionals are facing a litany of stressors that have been compounded by the pandemic, and consequently, this has further perpetuated suboptimal mental health and burnout in nursing. The purpose of this paper is to report select findings from a larger, national study exploring gendered experiences of mental health, leave of absence (LOA), and return to work from the perspectives of nurses and key stakeholders. Given the breadth of the data, this paper will focus exclusively on the qualitative results from 53 frontline Canadian nurses who were purposively recruited for their workplace insight. This paper focuses on the substantive theme of “Breaking Point,” in which nurses articulated a multiplicity of stress points at the individual, organizational, and societal levels that amplified burnout and accelerated mental health LOA from the workplace. These findings exemplify the complexities that underlie nurses' mental health and burnout and highlight the urgent need for multipronged individual, organizational, and structural interventions. Robust and timely interventions are needed to restore the health of the nursing profession and sustain its future.