This article is a contribution by Dr. Diana Bitner based on work published by Sun-Hwa Shin and Eun-Hye Lee
What would you do if you had pneumonia? You would go to the doctor and get medicine for this acute illness of your lungs. What if you developed diabetes? You would learn good diet and exercise habits to improve your blood sugars and take a medicine to keep your blood sugars in a good range. You would get modern treatment for a disease of your liver and pancreas. Why don’t we look at mental illness with the same emotionless straightforward way. Acute anxiety due to an overwhelming situation or trauma is like a pneumonia; hopefully straightforward to treat and not likely to happen again unless neglected. Depression is like diabetes, very treatable and kept from affecting quality or length of life but always in the background and needing attention to not get worse. Mental health is a disease of the brain and emotional response system just like diabetes is a disease, and people with mental health concerns deserve to be treated with the same respect as a person with diabetes.
World Mental Health Day is an international day for global mental health education and advocacy against social stigma. It is a day to take a breath and recognize our bias toward people with depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, or other mental health dysfunction and have empathy and grace for those who suffer. Just like diabetes, if untreated, depression can have devastating consequences and lead to people dying by suicide or having other long-term consequences on their life and the lives of their families and friends. The theme for 2024 is “It is time to Prioritize Mental Health in the Workplace.
What does this mean, “mental health at work”. This refers to all of us needing to have a healthy environment at work and following standards for best practice. In a research paper to help create standards for nurses, the authors followed guidelines from the World Health Organization for universal quality of life measurements and worked to define better how this applies to work. They created a checklist and a method to assess nursing units for how they support their nurses. Like many workplaces, after COVID, hospitals experienced a shortage of experienced workers, including nurses, and are looking to regain numbers with better support of its nurses. This assessment work was done to improve working conditions to avoid nurses’ burnout and improve patient outcomes. This is an excellent model for workplaces everywhere.
In terms of mental health at work, the aspects of psychological stability and individual competency deserve call-out. The key components are:
· work being a positive experience,
· work being structured to build workers self-esteem,
· work has an environment where workers know they are meeting goals
· the work team gives a sense of belonging
· workers need to be able to perform their job independent of micromanagement
· workers need to know they can grow their skill set with time and support.
Check out this handy chart Sun-Hwa Shin and Eun-Hye Lee included in their extensive study on the matter:
Jane: Jane was 45 and a nurse in the post-operative space at a local hospital. She had always loved her job because she got to help people come out of anesthesia safely and at times could use more of her ICU training if there was a complicated patient. She had a good relationship with the anesthesiologists and OR team and feel she belong to a big team and her opinion and assessment skills were respected and heard. Then COVID happened and all of her team leaders were moved around or left. The doctors were all stressed and did not have time to listen. With fewer and new nurses and new staff, everyone was stressed, tired, and overworked. She said there was not the same time for huddles, fewer sessions for feedback, and it just was not fun anymore. She was thinking about leaving because she had more anxiety, dreaded Monday morning, and knew it was affecting her mental health and happiness in other parts of her life.
Thankfully, one of the remaining leaders heard of her unhappiness. She asked her to spearhead a project to measure workplace satisfaction on the unit and be one of the forces to help them get right again. She felt respected for her experience and ability, felt part of the unit identity, and knew that she would learn while she did this new project. She felt much better about her work and was looking forward to Mondays again. Jane planned to take her experience of when it was great and when work was not, and leave a legacy of improving the work environment for the nurses, staff and impact Quality of Care for patients.
Takeaway Tip: if you do not feel there is support for your mental health at work, speak up. This is not about ‘woowoo’ but rather about health and success for the workers, the administration, and the bottom like of the corporation or business.
You can read the basis for this information in Sun-Hwa Shin and Eun-Hye Lee's work here: Development and validation of a quality of healthy work environment instrument for shift nurses
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