Empathy Subdomains and Nurse Burnout: Methodological Reflections on a Recent Meta-Analysis

Int Nurs Rev. 2026 Jun;73(2):e70185. doi: 10.1111/inr.70185.

ABSTRACT

This letter comments on the recent meta-analysis by Maximiano-Barreto et al. on empathy subdomains and burnout in nurses. The article makes a valuable contribution by showing that empathy is not uniformly protective: perspective taking may be associated with lower burnout, whereas personal distress and possibly fantasy may be associated with greater burnout. We suggest that three issues deserve further emphasis. First, pooling burnout syndrome with emotional exhaustion may obscure dimension-specific associations. Second, the predominance of cross-sectional studies and the substantial heterogeneity of empathy and burnout measures limit causal interpretation. Third, fantasy remains a conceptually debated subdomain and should be interpreted cautiously. Rather than asking whether empathy is protective or harmful in general, future research should specify which empathy components matter, for which burnout dimensions, and under which organizational conditions. This distinction has important implications for nursing education, staff support, and sustainable nursing policy.

PMID:42032800 | DOI:10.1111/inr.70185