【Nurse Working Style Awareness Survey 2026: Asked Approximately 10,000 Nurses】56% of Nurses Consider Changing Careers Outside of Nursing, Job Satisfaction Remains Largely Flat

SMS Corporation (Headquarters: Minato-ku, Tokyo; Representative Director and President: Masaki Takahata; TSE Prime; hereinafter "the Company"), which operates "Nurse Senka Tenshoku" (URL: https://www.nursejinzaibank.com/), a recruitment service for nurses, and "Nurse Senka" (URL: https://media.nurse-senka.jp/), a community for nurses and nursing students, conducted an "Awareness Survey on Nurses' Working Styles" targeting 9,574 nurses nationwide. This survey, focusing on nurse recruitment and retention, began in 2021 and is now in its fifth iteration. This press release primarily reports on the aggregated results from 8,190 respondents who indicated they are currently employed, out of the 9,574 surveyed.

【Survey Results Summary】 ・61.3% of nurses feel satisfied with their workplace, largely flat from last year (62.4%). ・56.5% of nurses responded that they have considered changing careers outside of nursing, but decided against it due to "compensation" and "qualifications/specialization." ・70.3% of nurses reported having no regular opportunity to convey their dissatisfaction or concerns to their superiors, suggesting they are bottling up their worries. ・44.5% of nurses reported experiencing or witnessing patient harassment in the past year. ・Regarding performance evaluations, "evaluation results are not sufficiently reflected in salary or bonuses (20.0%)" was the most common response, with less than 20% feeling satisfied. ・The top DX tools nurses hope to see introduced to reduce workload and administrative tasks are "AI-powered automatic generation and summarization of nursing records" and "summarization of committee and meeting minutes." ・5.1% of nurses responded that "paper is easier to use," indicating low resistance to ICT transition. ・52.7% of nurses are interested in side jobs/concurrent employment but are not currently engaged in them. ・Interest in working at home-visit nursing stations is declining, with a decrease in the proportion of people who feel social significance in home medical care or wish to engage deeply with users.

【Detailed Survey Results】 1. 61.3% of nurses are satisfied with their workplace. Last year's survey showed 62.4%, indicating largely flat satisfaction.

2. 56.5% of nurses have considered changing careers outside of nursing. The deciding factors for continuing in nursing were primarily "compensation (45.9%)" and "qualifications/specialization (44.9%)." *Question asked to 4,625 respondents who considered changing careers outside of nursing.

3. 70.3% of nurses reported having no regular opportunity to convey their dissatisfaction or concerns to their superiors. This suggests they are bottling up their worries without being able to consult.

4. 44.5% of nurses reported experiencing or witnessing patient harassment in the past year. The next highest was "power harassment (33.9%)."

5. Regarding performance evaluations, "evaluation results are not sufficiently reflected in salary or bonuses (20.0%)" was the most common response. The proportion of respondents who answered "no particular dissatisfaction (satisfied)" was less than 20%.

6. The top DX tools nurses hope to see introduced to reduce workload and administrative tasks are "AI-powered automatic generation and summarization of nursing records (31.8%)" and "summarization of committee and meeting minutes (31.6%)." This indicates high expectations for document creation and summarization.

7. 5.1% of nurses responded that "paper is easier to use," indicating low resistance to ICT transition. On the other hand, from the perspective of "ICT device utilization," only 25.8% responded "have never felt negative," meaning three out of four people have experienced some negative feelings such as "it takes time to respond to errors" or "it's difficult to use." *Question asked to 7,079 respondents who utilize ICT (including electronic medical records).

8. 52.7% of nurses are interested in side jobs/concurrent employment but are not currently engaged in them. 16.4% of nurses responded that they are engaged in side jobs/concurrent employment.

9. Interest in working at home-visit nursing stations is declining. There was a decrease in the proportion of people who feel social significance in home medical care or wish to engage deeply with users. *Question asked to respondents interested in working at home-visit nursing stations.

Conclusion This fifth survey aims to capture universal challenges and changes within the industry through regular implementation. We hope that the publication of these results will contribute to improving the working environment in nursing. This survey found that while workplace satisfaction remained largely flat, over half of nurses considered changing careers outside of nursing, indicating challenges in retention. In addition to issues like experiencing patient harassment and low satisfaction with performance evaluations, approximately 70% reported having no regular opportunity to convey their dissatisfaction or concerns to their superiors, highlighting communication issues in the field.