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| Science & Technology |
| The Alarming Increase in Female Healthcare Worker Suicide |
| 2025-02-01 |
| [Brownstone] Recent studies noticed death by suicide and the risk for fatal drug overdose among women in healthcare is much higher as compared with the general population (1-10). It is not only female physicians, but the risk is even higher for nurses and other healthcare workers, especially for those with the lowest-paid jobs and heaviest mental and physical workload who have been most stretched to the limits (7). Worldwide over the last several years thousands of healthcare workers have died by suicide or fatal overdose leaving family, friends, and the workplace in shock and grief. Suicide and self-harm have substantial social and economic costs (12). One death by suicide was calculated in the UK to cost the economy an average of 1.46 million pounds (13). In 2022 more than 360 nurses attempted suicide, and 72 medical professionals took their own lives in 2020 in the UK as data from the Office of National Statistics indicate. Analysis of mortality data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2007 to 2018 identified 2,374 suicides among nurses, 857 among doctors, and 156,141 in the general population. However, the number of death by suicide or fatal overdose is grossly underreported. The WHO reports that over 50% of suicides happen under the age of 50 years (14). To address this avoidable burden, a better understanding of effective and non-effective strategies is paramount. Even before the Covid pandemic started women in healthcare reported substantial workplace stressors (9-11, 15-16). The past four years have put additional strain on women’s health. This is especially true for those women working as front-liners and first responders in highly demanding stressful situations. Increased complexity of care, understaffing, long working hours, additional bureaucratic tasks, moral injury, diminished autonomy, lack of decision-making ability, and low-paid jobs take a burden on their health. Moreover, women routinely face tougher challenges at work and at home such as institutionalized barriers to career advancement as well as additional pressure for domestic labor by frequently being a caregiver for children and/or parents (9). In all parts of the world healthcare workers are at high risk for violence with 8-38% suffering some sort of violence form in their careers. In 2023 for the first time in history, 75,000 healthcare workers in the US went on strike (17). |
| Posted by:Besoeker |
| #6 And to go beyond, other dangerous jobs, metal smelting, electrical line running, weather related search and rescue, 'Use It or Lose It' occupations. I'm going to put this out there: The best immediate result is going to be acceptance that there are people who go do the shit and need to vent, and the casual BBQ people need to come to terms with them, not the other way around. |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2025-02-01 14:43 |
| #5 The question is: How do you empty that bottle? Along those lines, I have been given a Combat Vet Pass, and found we have the same issue: how do you talk to people to help pour that bottle with people who get out of their minds because their cheeseburger order "didn't come with the right cut of fried potatoes?" |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2025-02-01 14:15 |
| #4 Not sure how anyone survives as a nurse, EMT, fireman or policeman without a good spouse and an active prayer life. Fellow I know, grown, wife and kids, was considering Volunteer Fire. Noble, for sure, Minuteman lineage. I didn't crib that scene from the movie Act of Valor when they are about to deploy and the speech about having everything right at home beforehand, I referenced it, as any fissures at home will crack under the stress. Its all fun and games, I said, until "Its the middle of the night after a work day, and you are trying to dig Dad out from under the steering column, Mom is in the passenger seat with a Head & Face wound, and the kids are screaming in the back seat, and the clock is ticking. And you get home at 4am with all of that churning, and you have to be Dad in 2 hours getting ready to take the kids to their school day. You have to be able to bottle that shit so you don't talk to them like you were 3 sleepless hours ago like the teammate needing to get you the tool, over all the generators and chaos, because their school supplies aren't where they are supposed to be." |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2025-02-01 14:06 |
| #3 I spent several years with far too much time inside of various hospital wards during cancer treatments Hallways filled with so many shambling/rolling, crying, walking dead the administration put up one-way traffic signs to guide them. Waiting rooms of couches and plastic buckets for the chemo afflicted to recline and purge. Hallway benches filled with fatigued passersby unable to make it room to room. Patient checkins delayed while staff cleared the expired and sanitized their rooms. Staff dining facilities shared with ambulatory patients, no relief for caregivers. A full immersion PTSD development program. |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2025-02-01 11:51 |
| #2 I spent several years with far too much time inside of various hospital wards during cancer treatments for two family members a decade ago. It looks like an occupation filled with trauma, stress and adrenaline. Not sure how anyone survives as a nurse, EMT, fireman or policeman without a good spouse and an active prayer life. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2025-02-01 10:41 |
| #1 Personal experience from years working in hospitals is that nursing staff were more likely to suffer from depression, particularly those working 2nd or midnight shift. Lack of social contact and the depressing effect of continuously dealing with the failing human body? |
| Posted by: Mercutio 2025-02-01 10:22 |