AONL COVID-19 Study: Nurse Leaders Name Staffing, Mental Health as Top Challenges

AONL and Joslin Marketing partnered to conduct a longitudinal study on the impact of COVID-19 on nursing leadership from July 2020 to February 2021. The first survey, conducted in July 2020, followed the initial surge, while AONL fielded the second survey after the winter surge in February 2021. The findings, released this week, indicated a 24% drop in concern about personal protective equipment, but rising numbers of respondents expressed concern about staffing (a 12% increase to 65%) and mental health (an 18% increase to 67%). One nurse leader commented: “We have seen nurses leaving the profession due to moral distress, burnout, and fatigue. I believe if we can address the root cause of this problem, we will retain more nurses and begin to stabilize the numbers in the workforce.”