Addressing Nurse Fatigue to Promote Health, Safety, and Well-Being for All
Addressing Nurse Fatigue to Promote Health, Safety, and Well-Being for All
ANA Position Statement
Effective Date: May 27, 2026
Adopted By: ANA
Supersedes: ANA Position Statement (2014): Addressing Nurse Fatigue to Promote Safety and Health
Purpose
Backed by extensive evidence, this position statement underscores the profound impact of fatigue and fatigue-related illnesses on nurses and patient care. Fatigue is both an individual responsibility and a critical organizational imperative to safeguard both nurses’ well-being and patient safety. Nurse fatigue is not a personal failing but a predictable outcome of system failure, making its prevention and mitigation a shared personal, ethical, and organizational responsibility. This systemic issue is rooted in workplace culture, management decisions, staffing issues, workload, and environmental conditions, compromising nurse well-being and threatening patient safety. Sociopolitical pressures and unprecedented public health emergencies compound these issues.
By highlighting the urgency of this issue, this position statement calls on nurses, employers, and organizations to take decisive, evidence-based action to address and mitigate fatigue, ensuring the safety of patients and the nursing workforce. This call to action is grounded in the American Nurses Association (ANA) Code of Ethics for Nurses ( Code), which establishes the professional duty for nurses to be alert to signs of fatigue (ANA, 2025). ANA is committed to supporting a healthy nurse workforce through these updated recommendations, which are based on the latest evidence.
Please note that this position statement does not directly address moral fatigue, compassion fatigue, or burnout.
Statement of ANA Position
Nurse fatigue is a critical nurse and patient safety crisis and a public health issue. Backed by decades of extensive epidemiologic evidence, the American Nurses Association asserts that mitigating nurse fatigue with evidence-based strategies is not only the responsibility of licensed nurses but also a non-negotiable organizational and employer imperative. Nurse fatigue, especially from long hours, heavy patient workload, inadequate staffing, and shiftwork, has been linked to increased medical errors, staggering financial costs (NSC, 2026), and a spectrum of chronic physical and mental health disorders. To address this, both employers and nurses share responsibility for monitoring physical and mental capacity to ensure nurses have the alertness and energy required to provide safe, high-quality care. Furthermore, healthcare organizations must implement, and nurses must participate in, effective and evidence-based interventions to reduce fatigue and safeguard the health and safety of patients and nurses. These system-level solutions include but are not limited to appropriate staffing; realistic workloads; fair and sustainable compensation; expected work hours of no more than 40 hours/week; and use of reliable contingency staffing plans. Employers must create conditions that enable nurses to monitor and report fatigue without fear and punitive consequences. Viewing nurse fatigue through the lens of safety benefits both nurses and the patients they serve.
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