Systematic review and meta-analysis compares burnout in nurses on shift-based vs. fixed schedules, indicating no significant differences.
This paper reports on the finding of a systematic review and meta-analysis of studies from around the world on burnout of nurses working rotating shifts compared with fixed shifts. The present systematic review and meta-analysis was registered in PROSPERO with ID No. CRD420261380531. CINAHL Complete, PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science were used. We included all quasi-experimental, observational, cross-sectional, retrospective, and prospective studies recording scores in burnout and related dimensions comparing nurses who worked fixed shifts and those who worked day shifts. Our findings revealed no statistically significant differences between the two groups across all analyses, despite the presence of high and statistically significant heterogeneity (.0001 ≤ p ≤ .03). Additional research is needed to assess shift work factors that may contribute to burnout.
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Vitale et al. (2026) studied this question.
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