Background and Objectives: Burnout trends increasing among nurses have contributed to national shortages of healthcare personnel (HCP) in the US. Burnout is an occupational phenomenon resulting from chronic unmanaged job stress presenting as feelings of exhaustion, decreased worker efficiency, and reduced self-care practices. Objectives include assessing HCP to identify trends of burnout and positive occupational well-being.

Methods: A framework of evidence-based domains and subdomains developed using the Total Worker Health® model of worker-well-being, various burnout inventories, and utilizing the health belief model. This framework guided the construction of the Burnout and Occupational Well Being Survey (BOWS), including domains: compassion fatigue, presenteeism, and personal wellness. The BOWS utilizes a 6-point agreement scale. Score classification utilized three categories: positive occupational well-being, burnout trends, and burnout. The BOWS was distributed to all registered nurses and licensed nursing assistants throughout the hospital system.

Results: Of 585 invited to participate, 196 nurses (33.5%) consented to participate. Positive occupational well-being of nursing staff was indicated by the BOWS score sample mean (2.94, n=196). Burnout trends were revealed for specific domains throughout the sample (CF:3.03;PW:31,n=196), and within key departments of the hospital (Emergency:3.63,n=13;ICU:3.17,n=10;MEDSURG:3.18,n=40). Regression analyses revealed that the BOWS model statistically significantly predicted participants' perceived experience of burnout (F(3,192)=130.466, p<0.001, R2=0.671, n=196).

Conclusions: The hospital’s HCP is not experiencing burnout at the systems-level. Departments exhibiting burnout trends were identified and would benefit from targeted intervention. Healthcare organizations recognize burnout's detrimental impact and want to support HCP. The first step of addressing HCP burnout is conducting the assessment.