Why healthcare workers are burning out

The News

Health workers experience burnout more frequently than before the Covid-19 pandemic, while also suffering symptoms of anxiety and depression, sleep problems and harassment, according to a federal survey of American Workers released Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The results offer a rare glimpse into worker morale before and after the peak of the pandemic.

The research compared data from 2018 and 2022 and highlighted a serious staffing crisis in the country's health workforce, which has gone through the pandemic limping along amid long hours, high staff turnover, violence in emergency departments and public vitriol over vaccines, masks and treatments. Hundreds of thousands of medical workers have left their jobs in recent years.

“Before Covid, we knew that many hospitals were understaffed, that healthcare workers were "I think Covid has made that worse, and I think the system has really been strained."

Image Compared to the other groups surveyed, Health workers reported a substantial increase in days of poor mental health, from 3.3 in 2018 to 4.5 in 2022.Credit… Erin Schaff/The New York Times

The tally: nearly five days of poor mental health per month.

Federal researchers tracked self-reported mental health symptoms among more than a thousand...