Comparing health metrics of nurses across the career trajectory

One contributing factor to the nurse staffing crisis may be the persistent challenges of maintaining wellbeing throughout the profession.

This analysis examines how well-being differs by different stages of the nurse career trajectory.

Data included HealthyNurse survey respondents from June 2024 to May 2025 (n = 5,006). Poisson and linear regressions estimated nine well-being outcomes by employment stage, categorized as student nurses, years of experience, and former nurse. Models controlled for age, gender, race, work environment, and specialty. Nurses working for 20 years or fewer had less moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA), lower social ability, and higher fatigue than nursing students.

Nurses with 3 to 20 years of experience had higher depression, and those with 3 to 30 years of experience had higher BMI than students. Compared to former nurses, nurses with 20 or fewer years of experience had higher fatigue, and nurses with 10 or fewer years of experience had fewer strength training days, while brand new nurses had lower social ability and less MVPA.

Early and mid-career nurses demonstrated worse well-being outocmes compared to students, and similar or worse outcomes to former nurses.

Findings highlight well-being as a potential driver of premature career exit.