Health workers face mental health crisis, CDC report says

Researchers from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are sounding the alarm on a mental health crisis for health workers around the country.

Using nationwide survey data between 2018 and 2022, on Tuesday, the public health agency published a study that highlighted the quality of mental health, the quality of work

 life and harassment faced by those in the field — using survey data to determine that nearly half of health care workers reported feeling burned out last year.

The report, released on Tuesday, also shows that health workers face worse mental health outcomes than employees in other industries.

“We depend on our nation’s health workers and they must be supported," CDC Chief Medical Officer Debra Houry said. "Employers can act now by modifying working conditions associated with burnout and poor mental health outcomes in health settings."

“While usually health workers care diligently for others in their time of need, it is now our nation’s health workers who are suffering, and we must act,” said Dr. Debra Houry, the CDC’s chief medical officer.

Even before the pandemic, Houry added, health workers’ jobs were demanding: Providers face long hours and unpredictable schedules, exposure to infectious diseases, and often-challenging interactions with patients and their families.

Previous research has found that health care workers — especially nurses, health support workers and health technicians — face an increased risk of suicide compared with people who don’t work in the medical field.

“Caring for people who are sick can also be intensely stressful and emotional,” Houry said. “Although you do everything you can to save a life, I still remember some of the tough patient cases I had, where I gave the bad news about an advanced cancer diagnosis to a working spouse or the time I was unable to resuscitate the young toddler after a car crash.

“After a shift like this, I would have to put on a good front and take care of my own family. And in doing this, I didn’t always pay enough attention to my own wellness needs.”

According to Houry, the Covid-19 pandemic made workplace challenges worse, with health care providers facing a wave of patients, long hours and supply shortages. Those stresses fueled a rise in mental health complications, suicidal ideation, and like large parts of the US adult population, substance abuse challenges.

The study found that health care workers reported an increase in poor mental health days between 2018 and 2022. In the survey, 44% of health workers reported wanting to look for a new job, up from 33% in 2018.