Nursing & Healthcare News

Still Most Trusted

Gallup poll reaffirms robust public trust in nurses

By Aaron SeversonFebruary 17, 2020

1 min read

Gallup has kicked off the Year of the Nurse in style with new poll results demonstrating that nursing (again!) remains America’s most trusted profession.

Ethics and Honesty

If you ever find yourself feeling a little worn down at work, you can take some consolation in the fact that most of the people you encounter in everyday life, on the Metro or at the grocery store have extraordinary respect for your profession. For almost 20 years, nursing has consistently topped Gallup’s annual poll ranking the ethics and honesty of various professions.

The 2020 poll, conducted in December and released January 6, continues that trend: Eighty-five percent of respondents ranked nurses’ ethics and honesty as “high” or “very high.”

That’s fully 19 percentage points higher than engineers (who were second, with a 66 percent rating), 20 percentage points higher than medical doctors (who ranked third overall, with a 65 percent rating) and 21 points higher than pharmacists (who ranked fourth, with a 64 percent rating).

Keeping the Faith

There’s nothing ambivalent about the poll results. Thirty-one percent of respondents rated nurses’ ethical standards as “very high,” the poll’s best possible ranking. By comparison, only 20 percent of respondents rated physicians’ honesty and ethics “very high,” the poll’s second-best figure. Almost no respondents — a mere 1.4 percent — rated nurses’ honesty as lower than average.

Nursing Education

Campus ProgramsAzusa Pacific University School of Nursing

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“I am extremely proud that nurses everywhere have been bestowed this wonderful accolade by the people whose lives they touch every day,” says ANA President Ernest Grant, RN, Ph.D., FAAN. “The fact that nurses have been consistently voted the most honest and ethical professionals is a testament to the public’s trust. We’ll work hard to keep their good faith throughout 2020 and beyond. I couldn’t think of a better way to enter into the ‘Year of the Nurse.’”

In this Article: Nursing Workforce