Aims:To explore factors associated with nurses' moral distress during the first COVID-19 surge and their longer-term mental health.

ImportanceDisruptions in the hospital clinical workforce threaten quality and safety of care and retention of health professionals. It is important to understand which interventions would be well received by clinicians to address the factors associated with turnover.ObjectivesTo determine well-being and turnover rates of physicians and nurses in hospital practice, and to identify actionable factors associated with adverse clinician outcomes, patient safety, and clinicians’ preferences for interventions.Design, Setting, and ParticipantsThis was a cross-sectional multicenter survey study conducted in 2021 with 21 050 physicians and nurses at 60 nationally distributed US Magnet hospitals. Respondents described their mental health and well-being, associations between modifiable work environment factors and physician and nurse burnout, mental health, hospital staff turnover, and patient safety. Data were analyzed from February 21, 2022, to March 28, 2023.Main Outcomes and MeasuresClinician outcomes (burnout, job dissatisfaction, intent to leave, turnover), well-being (depression, anxiety, work-life balance, health), patient safety, resources and work environment adequacy, and clinicians’ preferences for interventions to improve their well-being.ResultsThe study sample comprised responses from 15 738 nurses (mean [SD] age, 38.4 [11.7] years; 10 887 (69%) women; 8404 [53%] White individuals) practicing in 60 hospitals, and 5312 physicians (mean [SD] age, 44.7 [12.0] years; 2362 [45%] men; 2768 [52%] White individuals) practicing in 53 of the same hospitals, with an average of 100 physicians and 262 nurses per hospital and an overall clinician response rate of 26%. High burnout was common among hospital physicians (32%) and nurses (47%). Nurse burnout was associated with higher turnover of both nurses and physicians. Many physicians (12%) and nurses (26%) rated their hospitals unfavorably on patient safety, reported having too few nurses (28% and 54%, respectively), reported having a poor work environment (20% and 34%, respectively), and lacked confidence in management (42% and 46%, respectively). Fewer than 10% of clinicians described their workplace as joyful. Both physicians and nurses rated management interventions to improve care delivery as more important to their mental health and well-being than interventions directed at improving clinicians’ mental health. Improving nurse staffing was ranked highest among interventions (87% of nurses and 45% of physicians).Conclusions and RelevanceThis cross-sectional survey study of physicians and nurses practicing in US Magnet hospitals found that hospitals characterized as having too few nurses and unfavorable work environments had higher rates of clinician burnout, turnover, and unfavorable patient safety ratings. Clinicians wanted action by management to address insufficient nurse staffing, insufficient clinician control over workload, and poor work environments; they were less interested in wellness programs and resilience training.

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BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES We measured within-hospital concordance of mothers with opioid use disorder (OUD) and newborns with neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) or opioid exposure (OE). Secondarily, we described the demographics of mothers and newborns with and without opioid-related diagnoses. METHODS We used hospital discharge abstracts from California, Florida, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania in 2016. Descriptive statistics were used to compare newborns and mothers with and without opioid-related diagnoses. Within-hospital frequencies of mothers with OUD and newborns with NAS and OE were compared. Pearson’s correlation coefficients were calculated. RESULTS In 474 hospitals, we found 896 702 mothers (0.6% with OUD) and 910 867 newborns (0.47% with NAS, 0.85% with OE, and 0.07% with both). Although the frequency of mothers and newborns with opioid-related diagnoses in a hospital was strongly correlated (r = 0.81), more infants were identified than mothers in most hospitals (68.3%). Mothers with OUD were more likely to be white (79% vs 40.9%), on Medicaid (75.4% vs 44.0%), and receive care in rural hospitals (20.6% vs 17.6%), compared with mothers without OUD. Newborns with NAS had demographics similar to women with OUD. Newborns with OE were disproportionately Black (22% vs 7%) or Hispanic (22% vs 9%). CONCLUSIONS More newborns are diagnosed with opioid-related disorders than mothers are. Although infants diagnosed with NAS had demographics similar to mothers with OUD, infants with OE were more likely to be Black or Hispanic. The lack of diagnostic coding of maternal OUD and the racial differences in diagnoses warrant attention.

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