CDC Tries to Solve Emerging Crisis: Mental Health Issues Among Doctors and Nurses

Top line

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention seeks to combat the mental health crisis among health care workers by introducing a new initiative to help doctors and nurses deal with burnout, which has affected nearly half of the workforce in 2022.

A stressed healthcare worker sitting on the floor with her head down.

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Highlights

Crisis hit record high during Covid pandemic: 93% of healthcare workers reported feeling stressed between June and September 2020, 86% felt anxiety and 76% reported burnout, report says from the advocacy and research group Mental Health America. .

Although the Covid pandemic, which has forced hospitals to deal with years of intermittent staffing shortages and massive volumes of sick patients, has intensified existing risks and workloads, the problem of burnout preceded the pandemic and persists years afterward, the CDC said in an October study.

Nearly 50% of healthcare workers experienced burnout in 2022, up from 32% in 2018, and the percentage of workers reporting workplace harassment more than doubled to 13.4% during this period. period, with harassed healthcare workers facing higher rates of workplace harassment. burnout and anxiety than their peers, according to the CDC study.

The CDC study also found that healthcare workers experience worse mental health outcomes than employees in other industries, and that 44% of healthcare workers intended to seek new employment in 2022, compared to 33% in 2018, although the percentage of all other workers who intended to look for a new job. new jobs have declined.

Healthcare workers face higher rates of suicide than other healthcare workers, with healthcare support workers (21.4%) and registered nurses (16%) experiencing the highest rates. according to a September study published in JAMA reports.

Healthcare workers have faced mental health issues for years: a separate topic JAMA One study found that between 1963 and 2015, 20% of American doctors suffered from depression.

News

The new CDC program announced Tuesday to help combat burnout is called Impact Wellbeing. The program includes a questionnaire to collect information on health worker well-being, a guide that helps leaders talk about mental health care, and strategies for supervisors to balance their employees’ work and home lives . The new program stems from a 2022 federal law named after a doctor who died by suicide in 2020.

Surprising fact

About four in 10 doctors are afraid or know someone who is afraid to seek mental health care because of how it would affect their answers to questions on hospital accreditation applications. Impact Wellbeing therefore encourages hospitals to remove intrusive mental health questions from applications. Several organizations, such as the American Medical Association, have called on medical licensing programs to eliminate questions that might dissuade workers from seeking help for mental health or substance abuse problems.

Tangent

Kaiser Permanente, one of the nation’s largest health care organizations, reached tentative agreements with more than 11 unions last month, ending the largest health care worker strike in state history -United, but two unions are still on strike. Kaiser pharmacy employees have been on strike since October 23 and plan to continue the strike until November 18. More than 500 imaging workers at five Kaiser locations in Oregon and Washington joined the picket line Wednesday, which is also expected to last until November 18. according to United Food and Commercial Workers Local 555, the workers’ union. Kaiser said Forbes he was disappointed that UFCW Imaging Local 555, which represents approximately 560 Kaiser Permanente Northwest employees, chose to strike.