The Mental Wellness of Healthcare Workers Post-Pandemic

We have already touched on how burnout is driving the number of healthcare workers resigning from their roles up. However, it would seem pertinent to dive a little deeper into just how important managing the mental health of nurses, physicians, etc. is going to be for HR teams as we move out of the pandemic and into the next stage of our lives.

While there is still a great deal of stigma around mental health, we are living in era where psychological conditions are now beginning to be treated with the same seriousness a physical illness or injury. The old attitudes of "just pulling yourself up by your bootstraps," or "have you tried not being depressed?" are now starting to sound as hokey and outdated as they deserve to be.

Naturally, any discussion of the mental wellness of healthcare workers must involve the events of the last two years, so let’s get into it.

COVID-19

There will come a day when articles such as this will be able to get away with not mentioning the global COVID-19 crisis, but it is not this day. When it comes to healthcare workers, the pandemic has had a greater impact than we still completely understand and it’s going to take a significant amount of time to get over its effects.

Of course, the healthcare industry was associated with work-related mental health distress long before the term coronavirus became part of the global lexicon, but the pandemic has almost certainly made that issue more acute. Longer working hours, the struggle to access PPE and essential equipment such as ventilators, increased exposure to transmission risks, seriously ill and dying parents, the trauma of telling families they cannot be near the loved ones as they die, and many more factors have all conspired to leave many healthcare workers on the frontlines of this crisis in a state of serious trauma and burnout.

It's little wonder then that a recent survey by The Royal College of Physicians has found that nearly a third (29%) of doctors have sought help with their mental health during the pandemic. In a survey of 7,000 doctors, the British Medical Association found that 41% of doctors reported suffering with a work-related mental health condition, with 29% stating that this had got worse during the pandemic.

And the issue is global, with a cross-sectional survey of 595 healthcare workers in Italy finding that working with COVID-19 patients was a risk factor for higher levels of stress. 39% of Spanish respondents reporting high depersonalization and 43% considered that they might need psychological or psychiatric treatment in the future. Surveys in other countries (including Turkey, Oman, China, and Ethiopia) have also demonstrated a consistent pattern of elevated levels of mental distress among healthcare workers during the pandemic.

HR’s Role

The pandemic has taken the work-related stress risks which were always associated with healthcare work and dialed them up to eleven. Healthcare staff need additional support to help them effectively manage this trauma or risk falling ever deeper into poor mental health which will have serious ramifications for, not only their personal lives, but the ability for healthcare providers to function.

HR teams must be proactive and engage with staff to address this issues and connect them with appropriate support or risk losing them forever. We have already discussed in this article series the need for HR teams to look beyond data and become a more human function and nowhere is that ethos more critical than in this regard.

Healthcare workers, like employees in any industry, want to feel like their employer respects their demanding work and cares about the toll it may leave on them. After all, we insist that construction workers wear hard hats, steel-toed footwear, and high-vis vests because of the increased chances of bodily harm in that industry. Therefore, we need to apply that same mindset to industries, such as healthcare, where there exists and elevated risk of psychological harm.

Those organizations which fail to take the mental wellness of their employees seriously may soon find they have very few left as they leave the industry in droves as we are seeing in the figures for the Great Resignation.

Final Thoughts

Mental wellbeing has become a hot button issue for our entire society thanks in part to the COVID-19 pandemic, and nowhere is this perhaps more evident than in the healthcare industry. If we fail to take care of the people who take care of us, all of society stands to lose.

Mental wellness in healthcare is certain to be part of the conversation at HR Healthcare 2022, taking place in October at the Hyatt Regency Austin, TX.

Download the agenda today for more information and insights.