The healthcare industry is certainly chat about the mental health of nurses, but according to a Report Nursing job platform released Wednesday trustworthy health.
For the report, Trusted Health surveyed more than 2,500 nurses in May. Nearly 40 percent of respondents were in their 30s, and about two-thirds were under 40. They work in different sectors and professions.
Using a scale of 1-10, respondents averaged their current mental health score of 5.8, compared with a pre-pandemic average of 7.8. That translates to a 26% drop in mental health – a slight improvement after a previous Trusted Health survey found drops of 29% in 2021 and 28% in 2020. Still, the finding means nurses’ mental health isn’t close to returning to previous levels. Epidemic level.
The report found that 75% of nurses felt burned out and 64% had struggled with depression. Unfortunately, nurse managers often ignore and/or address these issues, according to Dani Bowie, vice president of clinical strategy and transformation at Trusted Health. One reason for this, she said, is that nurse administrators are often overworked and unable to have meaningful conversations with staff about mental health.
“Nurse administrators who support the front line are often more worried about filling open shifts, so they don’t have time to talk in their small groups about mental health resources that might be beneficial,” Bowie said.
The report also revealed some of the less discussed issues that nurses are dealing with. For example, 64% of nurses said that in addition to their mental health, their physical health was also declining. This happens because nursing is a physically demanding job, and nurses work long hours to make up for staff shortages. It also sometimes happens because nurses are too tired to exercise or cook healthy meals outside of work.
Additionally, nurses are experiencing negative emotions that make them question whether they belong in the profession. In fact, the report found that 66 percent of nurses experienced compassion fatigue with their patients, meaning they were so emotionally and physically exhausted that it was more difficult for them to empathize or empathize with those in their care. In addition, nearly half of nurses said they had experienced moral harm related to ethical dilemmas that arose at work, such as the need to quantify patient care due to staffing shortages.
Bowie noted that most nurses enter the profession because they want to help people and provide quality care. Having to skip tasks like walking around patients or brushing teeth can make nurses feel as if they “can’t do the holistic care they’ve been trained and aspired to do,” she said.
There also appear to be awareness issues when it comes to the services mental health plan providers offer their nurses. 40% of nurses say they don’t know what mental health benefits their current facility offers.
Access to a mental health or crisis line (39%), mindfulness education and other stress reduction techniques (29%), and one-on-one counseling or therapy (18%) were the most common resources for those who knew their employer already provided. However, none of these resources were in the top three most beneficial to respondents: health or fitness allowances (74%); use of a gym, yoga studio or group fitness classes (67%) and flexible schedules (64%).
To effectively address mental health issues for nurses, providers must focus on the benefits of making nursing a more sustainable career option. Bowie said that making schedules more flexible is one of the most important ways suppliers can achieve this goal.
Nearly three-quarters of respondents said their experience as a nurse would improve if they had more control over their schedules, and more than half said their current schedules would reduce their job satisfaction Spend. As nurses see their peers in other industries adopt new ways of working, such as flexible hours and remote work, their desire for flexible scheduling will only grow.
Providers should give nurses the benefits they ask for as soon as possible – more than 100,00 registered nurses leave the workforce In 2021, the biggest exodus of a career in more than four decades.
“A lot of nurses feel as though talking about their mental health is happening and the action isn’t really moving forward,” Bowie said.
Photo: gpointstudio, Getty Images
