A claim circulating on social media that female nurses are more likely to cheat on their partners than women in any other profession has sparked debate, although the evidence behind the claim is not as strong as the viral posts suggest.
The claim appears to originate from data associated with Illicit Encounters, a UK-based dating website for married people seeking extramarital affairs. Reports about the platform's data have said nurses represented the largest proportion of its female users, leading to headlines that female nurses were the profession most likely to have affairs.
However, the finding should not be interpreted as a scientific survey proving that nurses cheat more than women in other professions. The data comes from users of an affair-focused dating platform, meaning the sample is made up of people who had already joined a service designed to facilitate infidelity. It therefore cannot reliably represent the behaviour of female nurses as a whole.
The claim has nevertheless gained traction online, with discussions focusing on the demanding nature of nursing, including long shifts, night duty, workplace stress and the close relationships that can develop among healthcare workers. Some reports have suggested that these factors may contribute to relationship difficulties, although they do not establish that nurses are inherently more unfaithful.
The controversy also highlights the danger of turning data from a specialised dating website into a broad statement about an entire profession. Nurses remain a large and predominantly female workforce, meaning their representation on such platforms can also be influenced by the size and composition of the profession.
