Nurse Burnout Syndrome: A Comprehensive Review of Prevalence, Contributing Factors, Consequences, and Evidence-Based Interventions in Contemporary Healthcare Systems
Published 2025-07-15
Keywords
- Nurse burnout syndrome, emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, patient safety, healthcare quality, mindfulness-based interventions, nurse retention, organizational factors, workforce shortage, Maslach Burnout Inventory
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Abstract
Nurse burnout syndrome represents a critical occupational phenomenon characterized by emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment, with profound implications for healthcare quality, patient safety, and workforce sustainability. This comprehensive review synthesizes current evidence from systematic reviews and meta-analyses published between 2020 and 2025, examining the global prevalence, multifactorial determinants, and far-reaching consequences of burnout among nursing professionals. The review demonstrates that nurse burnout affects approximately 30-33% of the global nursing workforce, with significant regional variations and alarming increases following the COVID-19 pandemic. Key contributing factors identified include organizational elements such as inadequate staffing ratios, excessive workloads, poor leadership practices, and unsupportive work environments, alongside individual factors including insufficient resilience, limited coping strategies, and work-life imbalance. The consequences of nurse burnout extend beyond individual well-being to encompass compromised patient safety outcomes, including increased mortality rates, nosocomial infections, medication errors, and adverse events, as well as reduced patient satisfaction and quality of care. Evidence-based interventions, particularly mindfulness-based interventions and cognitive-behavioral therapy, demonstrate moderate to strong effectiveness in reducing burnout symptoms when implemented systematically. Organizational-level strategies, including transformational leadership, adequate staffing ratios, enhanced professional development opportunities, and supportive workplace cultures, show promise in retention and burnout prevention. This review underscores the urgent need for multi-level, coordinated interventions addressing both individual resilience and systemic organizational factors to mitigate nurse burnout and ensure sustainable, high-quality healthcare delivery.