USD Magazine Fall 2022

Z A C H A R Y B A R R O N

[ i n t r e p i d ]

by Kelsey Grey ’15 (BA) Hea l th care worker s at r i sk for menta l hea l th i s sues N PRACT I C ING SE L F -CARE urses and frontline health care workers have worked relentlessly

experiencing anxiety and 76% reported exhaustion and burnout. A recent study released by a team of researchers at UC San Diego in the Journal of the Ameri- can Medical Association found nurses die by suicide at a signifi- cantly higher rate than the gen- eral population. Using nation- wide data on violent deaths from 2014, researchers found that sui- cide rates were nearly 58% high- er for female nurses and 41% higher for male nurses. “One of the main differences with medical professionals is that they are more likely than the general population to overdose or poison themselves,” says Lais. “They have some knowledge about pharmacology and medications, so they have

of a lot of nurses, there are more pressing issues, like improving other peoples’ lives.” From June to September 2020, the community-based nonprofit Mental Health America hosted a survey to record the experi- ences of health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. They collected 1,119 responses from health care workers, many of which indicated they were stretched too thin. A whopping 86% reported

abuse and suicide, something faculty members at USD’s Hahn School of Nursing and Health Science are taking seriously. “One of the things that makes nurses so much more vulnerable with these conditions is they tend to be people who want to help other people, at the expense of their own health,” says Katie Lais DNP, PMHNP-BC (pic- tured, at left) .“Things like [self] mental health treatment gets dropped off because in the mind

over the past few years, facing surge after surge, witnessing thousands of deaths and surviv- ing severe staffing shortages. Now, research suggests that most health care workers are wrestling with psychiatric symp- toms. Some mental health pro- viders have warned that these could turn into an onslaught of related issues like substance

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