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Abstract
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Introduction
We can no longer ignore the troubling data: nurses are at an alarmingly high risk for serious mental health threats and death by suicide. Without urgent, multi-faceted actions, nurses will continue to suffer, threatening overall population health. Below we review recent data, knowledge gaps, and opportunities to understand and improve the well-being of the largest health care workforce.
The Alarming Evidence
Using the latest available data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention National Violent Death Reporting System, Davis et al. (2021) found that between 2007 and 2018, nurses were 18% more likely to die from suicide than the general population. Among female nurses, the risk of death by suicide was approximately twice the risk observed in the general population, and 70% more likely than female physicians. Rates of death by suicide among physicians did not differ significantly from the general population.
Davis et al. (2021) also reported that from 2017 to 2018, an estimated 729 American nurses died by suicide, the highest reported number on record. But we fear the worst is yet to come. The repetitive and traumatic stress experienced during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has placed nurses at substantially higher risk for poorer mental health relative to other health professions (Kunz et al., 2021). A case review of international press reports described six nurses whose deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic were under investigation for suicide (Rahman & Plummer, 2020). We know from studies of past catastrophic events that thoughts and attempts at suicide may occur long after stressful events are over (Brown et al., 2018). It takes approximately 2 years to compile national estimates of suicides, due to the complex and sensitive nature of the data. We cannot wait another 2 years for those data to tell us what we know right now: nurses are in trouble (Brown, 2021)...
Language: en |