Enhancing overall well-being

BURNOUT, a condition discussed frequently in relation to clinical beside nurses, also impacts nursing faculty. As defined by the American Nurses Association, burnout results from unmanaged, chronic workplace stress. In a survey of 3,556 nursing faculty by Zangaro, approximately 85% reported moderate-to-high levels of exhaustion, disengagement, and overall burnout. The researchers concluded that burnout was highest when faculty are striving to reach career peaks.

This level of burnout among nursing faculty has the potential to create a domino effect—faculty leaving academia and reduced capacity to graduate enough nurses to meet the demand. Faculty and academic leaders can work together to understand the causes of burnout, recognize symptoms, and develop strategies that enhance emotional, mental, and spiritual well-being.

Causes and symptoms

A range of workplace responsibilities—teaching, scholarship, research, and committee work—combined with the maintenance of work–life balance can lead to nursing faculty burnout. Large class sizes, heavy teaching loads, expectations for student success, increased pressure for promotion and tenure, and greater demand for engagement with students in classroom and clinical environments also play a role.

The current faculty shortage compounds these causes of burnout. The American Association of Colleges of Nursing reported a national nursing faculty vacancy rate of almost 9% for 2022–2023. This represents 2,166 unfilled positions in baccalaureate and graduate nursing programs.

Symptoms of burnout include emotional exhaustion, depersonalization or disengagement, and reduced feelings of personal accomplishment, as described in the survey by Zangaro. Based on these symptoms, Maslach developed the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), a 22-item tool that evaluates emotional exhaustion, depersonalization or disengagement, and reduced feelings of personal accomplishment, with attached norms of 22.19, 7.12, and 36.53, respectively.
According to Beckstead, the MBI is the most widely used burnout evaluation tool due to its proven validity and reliability.

Well-being

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) describes well-being as an individual’s belief that positivity exists in their lives. Lovern and colleagues add that well-being promotes effective coping skills, productivity, and self-efficacy—confidence that one can accomplish tasks and achieve goals.

Jeopardized wellness hinders one’s ability to adapt. The ability to adjust to life’s challenges, personal or professional, comes from positive emotional, mental, and spiritual well-being. Research by Harris and Tao indicates that some nurses who feel their well-being is being threatened, such as can occur with burnout, turn to their spirituality to find meaning from the threat and attempt to address the negative effects holistically. This also could apply to nurse educators.

A review of the literature points to interconnection among spiritual, mental, and emotional well-being.

Spiritual well-being

Spiritual well-being typically focuses on patients rather than nurses or nursing faculty. Harris and Tao characterize spirituality as an active aspect of humanity in which individuals seek meaning and purpose. They also note that spirituality can enhance relationships with self, family, friends, and community and that a connection to a spiritual entity can prove helpful during times of stress, including when experiencing symptoms of burnout.

Although no literature exists directly related to nurse educators and burnout, De Diego-Cordero and colleagues describe that understanding the role spirituality can play in reducing stress may support nurse well-being, decrease burnout symptoms, and foster professional longevity.

Mental and emotional well-being

Mental (psychological) well-being in nurse educators involves feeling connected to their educator role and the accompanying responsibilities. According to Watson, nurse educators experiencing burnout tend to lose that connection and become mentally exhausted. Watson also found that nursing faculty are at a higher risk than non-nursing faculty for mental distress due to unhealthy work environments on clinical units and at their college or school of nursing. These unhealthy environments can include decreased staffing, increased workloads, and workplace violence.

Little research exists on emotional well-being in nursing faculty, and most research considers emotional well-being to be a part of mental well-being. The MBI looks at emotional exhaustion as a dimension of scoring. Beckstead defines emotional exhaustion as the inability to offer psychological support to others. This definition reinforces the idea that mental and emotional well-being are intertwined.

How to enhance well-being

Zangaro presented several strategies aimed at reducing nurse educator burnout, including mindfulness, healthy work environments, Lavender Lounges, and education for program leaders (deans and directors). Lovern and colleagues noted that resiliency, work engagement, leadership, and workplace culture also support faculty well-being.

Mindfulness

Lovern and colleagues and Zangaro define mindfulness as intentional awareness in daily activities and increased attention to present circumstances with openness, curiosity, and acceptance. Mindfulness has roots in Buddhist philosophy, teachings, and meditation practices. In 1979, Jon Kabat-Zinn introduced mindfulness practices to western society as a means to address chronic pain.

Hagerman and colleagues describe effective mindfulness strategies as those that feel effortless and organic. Some educators may find mindfulness interventions, such as mindfulness-based resilience training (MBRT), difficult to practice due to time constraints. However, as described by Zangaro, when incorporated into individual self-care practices, such as yoga, stretching, meditation, music therapy, and focused breathing, mindfulness can prove effective at reducing stress and burnout on an individual basis.

According to Lovern and colleagues, these activities allow one’s mind to turn off and focus on the activity at hand, which promotes relaxation, rest, and recuperation. Lovern and colleagues also note that mindfulness practices, when performed daily, can improve sleep quality and reduce feelings of anxiety, stress, and psychological distress.

Healthy work environment and engagement

The American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN) developed six standards to help create and maintain a healthy work environment: skilled communication, collaboration, effective decision-making, appropriate staffing, meaningful recognition, and authentic leadership. Although developed for clinical settings, the standards easily apply to academic settings.

As described by Zangaro, academic leaders can create a safe, collaborative work environment in which faculty feel comfortable saying no to increased workloads, have opportunities to participate in the decision-making process, receive positive recognition for their work, and have access to mentors for assistance with personal and professional development.

The AACN standards also contribute to faculty engagement, which AACN and Lovern and colleagues link to wellness. Lovern and colleagues also note that engagement promotes faculty resilience, dedication, and commitment to one’s work. In addition, engaged faculty can serve as positive role models to students.

Lavender Lounges

The Lavender Lounge concept grew out of Code Lavenders used in hospitals to support nurses, providers, patients, families, and volunteers during or after a stressful event. Within healthcare organizations, these lounges provide a quiet place anyone can visit to regroup after a distressing situation.

The first Lavender Lounge was created in a medical intensive care unit (MICU) at the Cleveland Clinic. Painted in warm tones, the lounge offers coffee, tea, and water. A table and chair provide a place to journal, or visitors can take advantage of a massage chair or sit in a beanbag chair. Other amenities include yoga mats and blocks. Funds for this lounge were provided by an $11,000 grant.

Schools of nursing also could create Lavendar Lounges where faculty can collect themselves after a difficult encounter. In budget-constrained institutions, consider a small-scale option—a quiet room with essential oils, quiet music, and comfortable seating.

Leader education

According to Zangaro, offering education aimed at increasing burnout awareness among nursing school leadership, including deans and directors, demonstrates the school’s commitment to faculty wellness. Lovern and colleagues note that educators who feel cared for by leadership have a higher rate of job satisfaction. The researchers go on to suggest that academic leaders can show they care about faculty by stopping into offices without cause, participating in non-work-related activities regularly (when invited), or taking part in work-related activities, as their schedule permits.

Transformational leadership andworkplace culture

Boamah notes the association between transformational leadership and decreased burnout, increased job satisfaction, and an improved work environment. According to Zangaro, transformational leaders create an environment that facilitates a sense of community, openness, and flexibility. This contrasts with transactional leadership, which, according to Greenway and Acai, relies on rewards for completed tasks; sometimes, the reward is avoided disciplinary action. Greenway and Acai add that transactional leadership is most common in higher education and is negatively related with student motivation and well-being.

Transformational academic leaders focus on building trust with faculty. According to Boamah, these leaders go beyond reward-based systems to instill a positive outlook about the future, facilitate team efficacy, and encourage employees to share their goals and vision for the future. Boamah also notes the positive relationship between transformational leadership and supportive workplace cultures and job satisfaction.

Lovern and colleagues noted that leaders who attend to their own well-being are best capable of creating positive work environments. Leaders can support their own well-being by initiating small group conversations with faculty, engaging in scholastic activities, and participating in non-work interests.

Resiliency

Resiliency can help nurse educators adapt to stressors and hardships and protect them from burnout. Attributes of resiliency include autonomy, self-esteem, self-awareness, responsibility, hope, sociability, and tolerance. According to Lovern and colleagues, resilient nurse educators experience a sense of empowerment and increased job satisfaction, which can lead to improved student success. (See How to build resilience.)

The need for research

The lack of research regarding burnout among nurse educators presents a challenge when academic institutions want to address the issue. Research in the form of surveys, questionnaires that incorporate the MBI, and interviews can inform the development of interventions aimed specifically at nursing faculty. For example, a comparison study between faculty teaching in an associate nursing degree program and those in a baccalaureate program could assess stress levels and coping mechanisms and also include implementation of prevention strategies, such as mindfulness activities and Lavendar Lounges.

Working together

Exhaustion and disengagement impact individual nursing educators and their relationships with other faculty, leadership, and students. By working together, educators and academic leaders can help to maintain faculty wellness.

When they establish a culture of transformational leadership, schools of nursing can provide educators with a work environment that encourages speaking up when overwhelmed and supports participation in coping strategies. Learning to recognize the symptoms of burnout can help individual faculty members acknowledge when they or their colleagues are struggling. That recognition can prompt taking steps to reduce stress and enhance well-being, including taking advantage of well-being opportunities and working with leadership to address concerns regarding workload and other conditions that contribute to burnout. (See Take steps.)

Ultimately, this collaboration to prevent burnout will aid educator recruitment and retention to ensure schools of nursing can meet the demand for clinical nurses.

Laurie Dellosso is an assistant professor at Radford University College of Nursing in Roanoke, Virginia.

American Nurse Journal. 2026; 21(8). Doi: 10.51256/ANJ082606

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Key words: Burnout, nurse educators, nursing faculty