Nurses Are Beyond Burnout, Suffering From PTSD as Spiraling Work Demands, Report Finds

COVID-19 have taken a significant toll on nurses’ mental, physical and emotional well-being.

 The third-party data demonstrates that working conditions during COVID-19 have taken a significant toll on nurses’ mental, physical and emotional well-being and suggests why more than two-in-five (41%) are considering leaving the profession for good. Now, higher levels of acuity and patient deaths, longer working hours, and increasing shortages of staff have combined with the inherent risks of treating COVID-19 infections to cause even more significant harm to nurses. “Our nurses are not experiencing fatigue or burnout, they are experiencing significant moral injury and critical distress to their emotional foundation,” said Rebecca Love, IntelyCare’s chief clinical officer, a nurse, and well-known advocate for nurses. “We know that most of what is being offered to the frontlines in terms of whole-person support does not address the moral injury that nurses are experiencing.” “Working in facilities with COVID can be terrifying,” said Nefertiti Graham, a certified nursing assistant working in long-term care. The survey reveals that over a third (37%) of nurses do not feel supported in their mental health at work and 41% feel that they lack overall support from their system’s senior management. Nurses are actively seeing dead patients in their waking hours, experiencing nightmares while they sleep and suffering from constant flashbacks triggered by their places of employment.” With the dramatic increases in death that nurses are managing throughout COVID, many at times are facing more death in a single day than they experienced in a full month prior to COVID. “Healthcare administrators owe it to nurses and to patients to empower and invest in the nursing profession,” David Coppins, IntelyCare CEO.