Emergency medicine workers report job satisfaction, though burnout and staff retention remain major problems

One of the largest international surveys into job satisfaction among emergency department workers has revealed that while the majority found their work satisfying and rewarding, there are still many areas where improvements are needed, according to research presented at the European Emergency Medicine Congress.

The paper, “Global Job Satisfaction Among Emergency Medicine Professionals: Results from the 2025 Emergency Medicine Day Survey,” is published in the European Journal of Emergency Medicine.

The survey, conducted by the EUSEM Emergency Medicine Day Working Group, received responses from 1,112 health care providers in 79 countries, and represents one of the largest and most comprehensive global assessments of emergency medicine (EM) workforce well-being to date.

EM professionals face persistent challenges including excessive workloads, high pressure, shift/night work and emotional stress. While job satisfaction is essential for workforce sustainability, quality of patient care and staff retention, international data on this topic remain limited.

The average satisfaction score among participants was 25.37 out of 36 and reflected a generally positive sentiment, but Professor Luis Garcia-Castrillo from the Marquès de Valdecilla University Hospital, University of Cantabira, Santander, Spain, says career development opportunities, work organization, and workload received relatively low scores.

“These are areas where action is needed urgently if specialist staff are to be retained and new team members recruited,” he says.

EM professionals working in high-volume emergency departments that received more than 100,000 visits a year reported significantly lower job satisfaction, as did those in mid-career with between five- and 20-years’ experience. While satisfaction did not vary significantly by gender, academic role, or hospital type, the survey highlights that nurses and paramedics reported higher satisfaction levels than physicians, particularly in workload and organizational aspects.

“Co-worker support, organizational commitment, and professional fulfillment were the most positively-rated factors. We also found that respondents intending to stay in their current role over the next year had significantly higher satisfaction scores, and this emphasizes the important link between well-being and staff retention,” says Prof Castrillo.

“The very nature of EM means that it places high demands on staff, but we have shown that with professional support, good team work and a sense of purpose, such demands do not inhibit their enthusiasm for their work,” says the paper’s first author, Professor Roberta Petrino, from the Ente Ospedaliere Cantonale, Lugano, Switzerland.

“But we cannot emphasize enough that strategies are needed to strengthen leadership, support mid-career staff, improve work-life balance and create clear professional growth opportunities. There are urgent red flags around the incidence of burnout, especially in departments with very high patient demands.”

The team plans to publish additional findings and to conduct further analyses of the data, including differences between countries and systems.

Emergency Medicine Working Group Chair, Dr. Basak Yilmaz, from the Emergency Medical Services of Burdur Provincial Health Directorate, Burdur, Turkiye, says, “Our data are already sufficient to be useful to local and national EM bodies as a benchmark for improving staff retention and care quality.

“One of our most striking findings is the strong correlation between job satisfaction and professional retention. This is important, not just for individual staff members, but also for the sustainability of the EM system as a whole.”

Provided by
European Society for Emergency Medicine