As burnout among nurse educators soars, evidence — and fellow nurses — offer guidance

In the world of nursing education, every day can be a juggling act. Meeting the complex and diverse demands of teaching, mentoring, problem-solving, and navigating academia often leaves little energy for meeting personal needs.

This imbalance can set the stage for burnout. And it’s occurring among nursing faculty at alarming rates.  

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A 2023 survey of nursing faculty at more than 1,000 U.S. institutions (Zengaro et al., 2023) found that:

• 85.5% reported moderate to high exhaustion
• 84.9% reported moderate to high disengagement
• 85.2% reported moderate to high overall burnout.

Similarly, 72% of respondents to a 2024 email survey (407 respondents) of faculty who use ATI resources identified burnout as their top concern.

Clearly, burnout is influencing the physical and mental health of nursing faculty. It requires definitive strategies not only for their well-being but also to help ensure that nursing programs can retain their most vital resource: educators to develop new nurses.

How is burnout defined, and what symptoms does it cause?

The World Health Organization (WHO) recognizes burnout as an occupational phenomenon and lists it in the International Classification of Diseases (current version ICD-11). ICD-11 defines burnout as a syndrome resulting from unmanaged chronic workplace stress, and states that the syndrome is characterized by three dimensions (WHO, 2019):

• feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion
• increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativity or cynicism related to one’s job
• reduced professional efficacy.

Is it possible to extinguish burnout? Experts say it’s unlikely due to its complexity. But burnout can be managed by employers and employees.

Why burnout is a ‘relationship crisis’

Michael P. Leiter, PhD, an organizational psychologist based in Nova Scotia, Canada, has researched burnout for more than 40 years. He said the most effective way to address this problem is from within a workplace.

“I look at burnout as a relationship crisis,” he said. “It's not something inside of people — it's something between people and where they work.”

This relationship crisis reflects a mismatch between a person’s core motives and their workplace, Dr. Leiter said. Research he performed with his frequent coauthor, Christina Maslach, PhD, has determined that core motives stem from the desire for belonging, efficacy, and autonomy. When employees don’t feel they can fulfill their core motives at work, incongruity with the job or workplace is likely the reason.

Dr. Leiter and Dr. Maslach are recognized for seminal findings on burnout and have written multiple articles and books on this topic. Their extensive body of work has identified primary strategies for burnout intervention, and a chief one is to increase opportunities for employees to fulfill core motives through work.

To achieve this requires two things: improvement in employees’ capacity to cope, and improvement in the management environment. Together, these can enable employees to pursue their core values (Leiter & Maslach, 2017).

Research-based strategies to manage burnout

To manage feelings of burnout, Dr. Leiter said actions that increase physical or mental health can be helpful.

“Burnout is bigger than you,” he said. “All the research shows that what drives burnout is coming from the job. So, the focus needs to be on how much an individual can do to tweak their job to make it a little bit better.”

He suggests recording in writing the experiences and feelings of each workday. By identifying trends, employees can identify recurring themes that might be feasible to address.

“See if there are ways you can nudge things in a positive direction,” Dr. Leiter advised. “The small gains are something to take seriously and to build on.”

To improve system practices and dynamics that fuel burnout, Dr. Leiter developed a work group process called SCORE — Strengthening a Culture of Respect and Engagement (Leiter, 2020). In this program, employees and their managers attend five 90-minute sessions scheduled 3 to 4 weeks apart. Dr. Leiter said SCORE is effective because it focuses on the interpersonal dynamics that contribute to burnout.

Whether burnout is addressed at a system level or not, employees always have the power to take personal actions that improve their physical and mental health. 

In fact, the use and efficacy of personal protections against burnout is a topic of ongoing research by nurses. Allan Lovern, DNP, RNA, FNP-BC, CNE, and coauthors examined self-directed, evidence-based burnout management strategies for nurse educators in a literature review published in 2024. The authors identified four evidence-based workplace strategies that may improve well-being and decrease the impact of the burnout experienced by faculty. They are:

• mindfulness practices
• building resiliency
• work engagement support
• leadership and cultures that promote caring.

The authors noted that the effects of burnout extend beyond direct impacts on faculty. The physical and mental well-being of faculty profoundly influences the success of students and institutions and should therefore be a priority for academic administrations, they said.

How setting boundaries can improve work-life balance

Another nurse researcher recently focused on a specific approach to burnout management that produced statistically significant results. Jillian Waugh, DNP, MSN, RN, focused her 2024 DNP project on determining whether setting boundaries can help nurse educators manage burnout. Dr. Waugh is a clinical assistant professor at Providence College and recently completed the DNP program at Regis College.

“I've been interested in learning more about burnout because I've seen so many colleagues affected by it,” she said. “I’ve seen them experience physiological and psychological distress — chronic headaches and back pain, GI symptoms. Some of them leave academia and return to the clinical setting, which is a problem because we don’t have enough nurse educators as it is.”

Through her project, Dr. Waugh sought to identify concrete burnout strategies and to evaluate their efficacy for nursing faculty. Her research found that the use of boundary management in other work sectors had helped employees achieve better work-life balance, so she focused on this approach.

Dr. Waugh used a quasi-experimental quantitative pretest-posttest design to evaluate the effect of boundary setting on nurse educators whose scores on the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory (CBI) indicated the presence of burnout. The CBI assesses burnout in three spheres: personal, work-related, and client-related. In her study, the client category referred to students.

To recruit participants, Dr. Waugh reached out to faculty at a community college where she had a contact and posted a message in a private Facebook group for nurse educators. In both communications, she explained the purpose and structure of the project and invited people to contact her via email for information.

Educators who agreed to participate completed the CBI and then received a handout on boundary techniques to improve work-life balance. Dr. Waugh asked them to incorporate the strategies for 6 weeks, after which they would take the CBI again and she would compare the scores.

The handout Dr. Waugh distributed provided detailed information on digital microboundary techniques identified by Marta Cecchinato, PhD, a researcher who is an assistant professor and senior lecturer in the Department of Computer and Information Science at Northumbria University in Newcastle, England. As the name implies, the boundary-setting techniques focus on limiting digital connectedness to the workplace.

“These are practical strategies such as turning off push notifications, having separate work and personal email accounts, and setting up email signatures that state your work hours and that people should not expect a response outside those hours,” Dr. Waugh said.

When she analyzed data from the 24 participants who met the study criteria, Dr. Waugh found that the boundary management techniques produced statistically significant improvement in burnout symptoms.

“This indicates that microboundaries are a viable option for nurse educators to help maintain their peace,” Dr. Waugh said. “It’s OK to set boundaries and limits on when we are going to work and be accessible for issues related to our work.”

The inventory scores showed that personal and work-related burnout occurred with much higher severity than student-related burnout. “It’s less about working with students and more about the other demands associated with being a nurse educator,” Dr. Waugh said. “I was encouraged by that finding.”

Although the identification of a strategy for reducing burnout in faculty is encouraging, it’s still important that nursing programs work to address system-based contributors to the problem, Dr. Waugh said.

“Nursing leadership in academia needs to address the problem of burnout by making changes in the demands on faculty,” she said. “But in the meantime, we have practical strategies like setting digital microboundaries.”

Practical burnout strategies from your colleagues

This summer, ATI has been sharing strategies for reducing burnout on its Facebook and Instagram accounts. In conjunction with this “Beat the Burnout” campaign, we’ve been gathering advice from you, the nursing faculty who are winning their own battles with burnout. We’ve summarized some of their actionable advice here.

Connect with resources for healthcare professionals. Visit www.dontclockout.org, a mental health nonprofit founded and led by healthcare workers. Resources identified by this organization include Introspective Spaces, a reflective community for women in healthcare; Operation Happy Nurse, an online community of nurses at all experience levels and specialties; and the Therapy Aid Coalition, which provides free and low-cost therapy options for all frontline workers.

Ask for help. Seek advice from a therapist, friends, and books such as Live Kind, Be Happy: How simple science-based kindness practices can make you happier, by Celeste DiMilla, MS, LMFT, CAPP.

Set realistic expectations. Assess your professional personal workload each morning. Determine what is realistic and do your best to accomplish those tasks.

Develop hobbies. Learning how to bake bread, refinish furniture, or play the piano serves as a healthy distraction from the situations and interactions contributing to burnout.

Plan fun activities. Several educators recommend putting activities on the calendar ahead of time, so that you can look forward to them.

Exercise. Moving the body in ways you enjoy — whether it’s cycling, yoga, or Zumba — releases endorphins and promotes positive feelings.

Say what you mean. One faculty member offered this simple but sage advice: Say no when you mean no and yes when you mean yes.

Set the tone for your day. Protect the first 30 minutes of your day. Use that time to sip coffee, read or reflect — whatever action helps you set a peaceful tone for the next 23.5 hours.

Establish a gratitude practice. A gratitude practice can take many forms. One of the better known is the Three Good Things intervention (also known as Three Blessings). Research shows that positive reflection can reduce burnout, build resilience, and improve well-being (Roberts, 2018).

References

Cecchinato, M. (n.d.). Taking control of work-life balance with microboundaries. Research-informed strategies. https://digitalboundariesresearch.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/microboundary-strategies-for-work-life-balance.pdf

Freudenberger, H. J. (1974). Staff burn-out. Journal of Social Issues. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4560.1974.tb00706.x

Lovern, A., Quinlan, L., Brogdon, S., Rabe, C., & Bonanno, L. S. (2024). Strategies to promote nurse educator well-being and prevent burnout: An integrative review. Teaching and Learning in Nursing, 19(2), 185-191. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.teln.2023.09.004

Leiter, M. P. (2020). SCORE (Strengthening a Culture of Respect and Engagement) overview. Work Engagement. https://mpleiter.wordpress.com/2020/01/08/score-strengthening-a-culture-of-respect-and-engagement-overview/

Leiter, M. P., & Maslach, C. (2017). Motivation, competence, and job burnout. In A. J. Elliot, C. S. Dweck, & D. S. Yeager (Eds.), Handbook of competence and motivation: Theory and application (2nd ed., pp. 370–384). The Guilford Press.

Roberts, P. (2018). Three Good Things: Build resilience and improve well-being. American Nurse. https://www.myamericannurse.com/three-good-things-build-resilience-and-improve-well-being/

World Health Organization. (2019). WHO guidelines on mental health at work. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240053052

World Health Organization. (2019). International Classification of Diseases, 11^th Revision. https://icd.who.int/en

Zangaro G. A., Rosseter, R., Trautman, D., Leaver, C. (2023). Burnout among academic nursing faculty. Journal of Professional Nursing, 48, 54-59. doi: 10.1016/j.profnurs.2023.06.001