Why Nurses Top the List as Most Trusted Professionals

Every year, a Gallup poll has ranked the general population’s trust in professionals across a variety of industries. This data reflects the public perception of honesty and ethical standards across professions as a whole and measures trends in how the public gains or loses trust in certain professions. In 1999, nurses were added to the listed options, and since their addition, Americans have consistently rated nurses as the most trusted professionals for more than two decades. 

This ranking is more than just an accomplishment — it’s an acknowledgement of the leadership and quality care that nurses consistently provide. Nursing and healthcare professionals will benefit from understanding the reasons behind this trust and its impact on patients, healthcare teams, and the industry as a whole.

Why Nurses Rank the Highest in Honesty and Ethics

The fact that nurses have consistently ranked at the top of Gallup’s list for 24 consecutive years is significant. What sets nurses apart from other professions when it comes to ethical standards and honest practices?

Patient-Focused and Person-Centered

Nurses work directly with patients, often providing essential comfort, care, and connection during times of need and vulnerability. When nurses connect with people and help them feel like active partners in their care experience, that trust becomes invaluable and translates into better outcomes. Studies have found a significant connection between patient trust and positive health outcomes, showing that this earned trust is more than just admirable — it’s an invaluable tool that can improve patient health.

Taking the Time to Connect

Patients often spend more time with nurses than with other professionals in their care experience. This provides an opportunity to make a deeper connection and form stronger trust. Simply put, nurses know their patients. They know their families. They are the face of care, providing answers, instructions, and a friendly presence. This connection is built over time and fosters trust, helping nurses advocate and educate more effectively.

Compassionate Care

A nurse’s work is inherently caring. Simple tasks that look like a job description on paper are acts of service to a patient, and that caring relationship builds trust. When patients have questions or concerns, they will turn to the presence they’re most comfortable with in their healthcare experience, typically their nurse. Most nurses pursue their careers because of an inner drive to help people, and that character trait is evident in patient interactions. Empathy is a foundational tool in patient relationships and can lead to deeper trust and better health outcomes.

How Do Nurses Maintain Ethical Standards?

The nursing industry intentionally guides professionals to maintain high standards of honesty and integrity. The American Nurses Association focuses the Code of Ethics for Nurses on ten specific provisions.

Each provision outlines an area where nurses should pay special attention to contribute honestly and ethically to the health of individual patients and broader communities. These provisions include:

1. Dignity and Respect: Nurses are compelled to treat all people and patients with dignity and respect through compassion and connection. They recognize that every person, regardless of any individual factors, has inherent worth.
2. Primary Commitment: Every nurse focuses on their primary commitment: the recipient of their care. That recipient may be a single person, a group or family, or an entire community or population, but the focused commitment remains the same.
3. Trust and Advocacy: Nursing professionals establish relationships built on trust through advocacy, care, and compassion. This trust is reflected again and again in the annual Gallup poll and plays a central role in successful nursing care.
4. Responsibility and Accountability for Practice: Every nurse is accountable and responsible for their own practices in efforts to promote health and provide quality care. Their obligations require honest accountability and a self-awareness that keeps them responsible for their actions and care decisions.
5. Duties to Self: Nurses must not only recognize the inherent worth of all patients, but also their own individual worth. Recognizing their own worth includes a responsibility to manage their own safety, maintain authenticity, and conduct themselves in ways that reflect self-respect, competence, and integrity.
6. Ethical Work Environments: Nursing professionals establish and maintain ethical work environments through both collective and individual efforts. This promotes well-being for professionals and their patients and allows nurses to maintain their individual code of ethics.
7. Knowledge Development and Social Policy: Each nursing professional has an ethical responsibility to advance the nursing profession through continuing education and updated professional standards. This advancement also requires an awareness of social concerns and responsive professional practices.
8. Collaborative Relationships: Nurses depend on each other. Collaborative relationships contribute to better practices and improved health outcomes. These collaborations include relationships between nurses, with other professionals, and with the public.
9. Commitment to Society and Social Justice: Professional organizations and individual nurses strive to support practices and policies that promote social justice. They understand health inequities and do what they can to remedy them. They work individually and collaboratively to improve social issues and advocate for quality care.
10. A Global Nursing Community: The newest provision in the Nursing Code of Ethics aims to establish a global nursing community. This connection is achieved through associations and organizations that bring nursing professionals together across geographic barriers and promote overall human and environmental health.

How Trust in Nurses Can Have a Broad Impact

There has never been a higher reported level of trust in nurses than in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, and 75 percent of Americans still report high trust in nurses today. This trust affects patients’ confidence in care and directly improves healthcare systems. Those improvements can include access to care, affordability of care, legislation that supports health professionals and patient care, and other initiatives led by trustworthy, informed nurses.

One of the most significant outcomes of trust in nurses is its positive impact on patient outcomes. When patients trust their nurse, they’re more likely to trust health institutions and other professionals. That increased trust can lead to committed management of health issues, and increased loyalty can lead to more consistent care. Connection and trust lead to better health outcomes.

SHC Supports Nurses

Supplemental Health Care understands that nurses are at the core of healthcare systems, and applauds the trust they develop with patients and communities. We know nurses need support to continue providing quality care and compassion. If you’re looking for help connecting with the right nursing opportunity, reach out today to learn more about available nurse jobs and how SHC provides unmatched support for nursing professionals.