ABSTRACTIn 1982 the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) was completed by 98 US educated and employed certified nurse‐midwives. The respondents represented 49% of a randomly selected sample stratified according to regions of the American College of Nurse‐Midwives. The findings revealed that the majority of the respondents reported low levels of burnout on all six MBI dimensions. However, high levels of burnout, ranging from 8.2 to 21.4% for the six MBI dimensions, were reported by the respondents. When relationships between the burnout dimensions and personal and environmental variables were examined, the findings were essentially specific to the MBI dimensions. Burnout is more likely to occur in nurse‐midwives with the following characteristics: young, have children, relatively newly employed in large services serving a high proportion of welfare clients, and often lacking physician, nurse, and consumer su