Nursing Faculty Burnout: New Study Reveals What Educators Need To Fulfill Their Roles

Nursing faculty burnout has been an issue in recent years. Learn about a wellness approach that nursing schools can use to reduce burnout among faculty.

The daily grading, writing, researching, committee work, and changing learning environments (classroom, online, hybrid) can lead to nursing faculty feeling overworked, reports the American Council on Education. The national nursing faculty shortage does not help.

According to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, there is an 8.8% national nursing faculty vacancy rate. This number is expected to rise as one-third of all nursing faculty is projected to retire by 2025. Western states like Alaska, Hawaii, California, and Colorado have the largest nursing faculty shortages.

Reduced enrollment is one contributing factor. Many postgraduate applicants are denied enrollment due to a lack of professors, preceptors, and clinical sites.

Pay differential is another factor. RNs make an average of $9,410 more per year than nursing professors as of September 2023, according to Zip Recruiter.

Nursing faculty exits are just one part of the problem. According to the National Council of State Boards of Nursing, one-fifth of the nursing workforce is expected to leave by 2027.

Educators are burdened with the task of helping to replenish the workforce. Where do these predictions leave faculty who will stay?

One study promotes resilience, moral courage, and purpose to promote better coping and personal well-being among nursing faculty.

According to a 2023 study, resilient people use protective coping mechanisms during stressful times. These core concepts include resilience, moral courage, and purpose, which can reduce the risk of burnout and promote well-being.

Researchers surveyed 690 full-time nursing faculty in the U.S. and Canada. The participants were asked about their experiences with resilience, moral courage, and purpose. The study also distinguished between knowing your purpose — which requires a high level of self-awareness and intentional reflection — and simply searching for it.

Results showed that resilience moderately correlated with the meaning of life presence (knowing your purpose) and moral courage. The study highlighted the importance of all three concepts when designing faculty education and development programs.

One of the study’s authors, Teresa M. Stephens, Ph.D., MSN, RN, CNE, author of Stephens’ Model of Resilience and the founder of RN P.R.E.P. (Personal Resilience Enhancement Plan), addresses potential barriers to implementation.

“Our study found moral courage to be correlated to resilience, but it is often difficult for nursing faculty to embrace due to hierarchy, which is often associated with a fear of retaliation, etc.,” she says. “Unless you feel you have nothing to lose (which is not very many nursing faculty) you remain silent when you observe unethical and/or outdated policies, processes, and/or behaviors which leads to great moral distress.”

Dr. Stephens believes that change can happen with a team-based leadership approach to ensure that the right people are in the right seats at the right time and that outdated practices harmful to faculty and learners are eliminated.

“Systems don’t change until the people within them change,” she says. “Resilience is an active response to stress and adversity, which means we, as faculty, must embrace the behaviors and characteristics of a highly resilient individual to drive the ‘radical transformation’ of our work environments.”