Background: Burnout is characterized by profound physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion that is common among nurses. Discrimination and Sexual Harassment may cause burnout, but existing scales do not address this, which can limit understanding and contribute to inequities. More research is needed to determine how discrimination and Sexual Harassment may cause burnout. Methods: I used a novel data source: the ‘Nursing’ subreddit on Reddit in this study. I used mixed methods approach to analyze the results. Keywords were defined and I developed a Python script for automatic extraction of posts. I used BERTopic model analysis, a Machine Learning Technique, for data analysis. This topic model analysis groups together similar posts and assigns a label to it. As part of this study, I analyzed a total of 770 posts. Results: The analysis reveals that nurses of different race, ethnicity, gender, age, and religion often face unexpected and uncomfortable interactions with patients, patient’s family, and co-workers. For instance, a nurse shared an experience where a patient not only made remarks about the nurse's race but also refused care from the nurse based on racial bias. The analysis also reveals that nurses, irrespective of gender, face sexual harassment both physical and verbal from patients, patient’s family, and co-workers. For instance, a nurse mentioned in one of the posts how sexual remarks from a patient made them uncomfortable and made all subsequent interactions difficult. In both cases, nurses described how these encounters left them feeling emotionally exhausted, leading to burnout. Discussion: The data reveals that discrimination of any type, sexual harassment, and burnout are not separate individual conditions but are interconnected. This study suggests that discrimination and sexual harassment are not different from burnout but can instead act as triggers for it. Unfortunately, none of the existing burnout measuring scales include these two critical factors identified in this study. Therefore, I believe there is a need to update the current burnout scales to address health inequities withing the nursing workforce.
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