Reclaiming Nurses Week Part 4: Nurses Mental Health

In Part 4 of our Reclaiming Nurses Week series, we hear about The Mental Health of Nurses. Listen, as nurses share their struggles with asking for help, and how the resilience they have built can work against them in seeking treatment. Mental health disorders cannot be seen, so having resources readily available and normalizing asking for help is paramount to supporting the mental health of our nurses.

In the previous Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3, we examined The Problem, The Cause, and The Solution. Nurses shared stories of the impact burnout has on their mental health, how these issues are rooted deeper than just the struggles during the pandemic, as well as what needs to change.

Read the transcript:

Cheryl: I think we think of nurses as these super humans, right? They can do everything and when they go to work, everything that happened at home was left at the door when they enter their new office or the hospital, wherever they're working. Part of being a human is the fact that we're complex and that we have to think of ourselves not only from a physical perspective, but also from a mental health perspective. If those two aren't connected and those two aren't balanced, it's very difficult for us to be able to be our best.

Sarah: A lot of nurses, a lot of health care workers weren't seeking help in the beginning because we were used to these issues. We were so used to it. We'd built that resilient that everyone talks about.

Amanda: One of the first and most simple things that we can, and I think should be doing is normalizing the process of asking for and receiving help, which culturally for nurses could be super difficult.

Rose: This is an environment that does not allow for coinciding or concurrent documentation of a nurse or a health care individual exhibiting symptoms that a mentally ill person would exhibit.

Cheryl: You can't see a mental health issue. It's not like a broken arm or a broken leg or a big cut on your head.

Rose: It's more than just once you're aware, it's more than giving cookies and treats to the nursing station. This is giving a place for nurses to be a patient.

Tamar: So, let's not wait until our nurses break. Give more available resources within the employment community. Seeing that taking care of our nurses' well-being is a part of their career journey, not an event.

Julie: It might be something as simple as how do we better coordinate with our housekeeping department so that nurses can focus more on the patient. It may be around connecting nurses with other nurses or having a quiet space for nurses to gather themselves. So these are what we're beginning to listen to and learn about so that we can come up with more targeted solutions.

Cheryl: If we can do that in workplaces, in our society as a whole, not just try to hide mental health issues, but actually talk about them and be understanding and try to provide resources, it could definitely make people feel more comfortable with saying I do need some help. It's okay to be a nurse who's caring for everyone and to also say I need some help.

Amanda: We're not great at asking for help. We're not great at really having insight about when we need help, which makes it all the more important that when we recognize behaviors in our friends and colleagues that are concerning to us, that we reflect that back to them. Because sometimes an individual is not necessarily going to have the insight to understand when they need help the most.

Julie: I'm just grateful that we have some excellent research showing how we can best help nurses, support nurses so that we can be our best.