The objective of this work is to review the causes of stress, frustration, lack of motivation and burnout suffered by nurses who work in hospital units of large institutions, and thereby updating the knowledge on the topic and analysing the authors. The work is complemented by the experience of staff working in the field of Nursing.

In a society like the current one, which is relativist and dominated by urgency, it is necessary to recuperate the moral values. Thus, there is now talk about a third level ethics, which refers to how public employees are treated by their managers and the values that should be used in the selection, control and training of the human resources.

From this point of view, once the context has been analysed, some very important problems are highlighted, among them: work overload, conflictive and ambiguous roles, depersonalisation and emotional exhaustion, absenteeism, etc.

In the face of this situation, it seems necessary to propose the development of a series of alternatives that contribute to an improvement in the problems detected. Such items include: clearly marking responsibilities, professional career, promotion opportunities, smaller hospital units, etc.