Quality of Nursing Work Life (QNWL) is defined as a degree to which nurses are able to satisfy their personal needs with experiences at work, simultaneously achieving complex objectives of the organisation they work at. The study aimed to analyse up-to-date available scientific literature devoted to nursing discussing the issue of nurses’ burnout in Poland. The problem of burnout is multidimensional and familiarity with the term of burnout does not reduce its incidence. Many sociodemographic factors have an impact on the occurrence of burnout, with the length of service constituting the strongest influence. Numerous studies have demonstrated that motivation for becoming a nurse exerts a strong influence on the occurrence of burnout. The level of burnout and depersonalisation is low and the level of satisfaction with personal achievements is high if a desire to help others is the main reason for entering the profession. There is also a correlation between burnout and the sense of competence: the lower the sense of competence, the higher the level of burnout. Analysis of the available Polish scientific literature demonstrated that the issue of broadly understood burnout among nurses working in the Polish healthcare system has already been sufficiently discussed. However, it is worth emphasising that there is a large variety of kinds of studies and research tools, from standardised questionnaires to original ones, which facilitates, to a large extent, a comparison of results. Should anyone wish to continue the study on the present issue, a multi-centre study with the use of standardised research tools needs to be considered.

Key words: burnout, nurses, stress, working conditions, literature review.