Health Workers' Mental Health Crisis: Burnout, Harassment and What Employers Can Do

Key points

• Harassment at work more than doubled among health workers, from 6% in 2018 to 13% in 2022.
• 46% often felt burned out in 2022, up from 32%.
• 44% planned to look for a new job, up from 33% — while among other workers that share fell.
• Health workers in supportive workplaces reported fewer mental health problems.

Why health workers are under strain

Health jobs are demanding and sometimes dangerous: exposure to infectious disease, and violence from patients and their families. The COVID-19 pandemic added surges of patients, longer hours and shortages of supplies and protective equipment. Health workers now report fatigue, loss and grief at higher levels than before the pandemic.

The study

This CDC Vital Signs report analyzed the Quality of Worklife survey, comparing 2018 with 2022 — before and after the pandemic began. It compared three groups:

• health workers — nurses, home health and personal care aides, nursing assistants, physicians, pharmacy technicians, dental and vision staff and many others;
• other essential workers — frontline workers outside health care;
• all other workers.

Poor mental health rose more for health workers than for either other group.

What changed, 2018 to 2022

Health workers were more likely than workers in other sectors to report poor working conditions during the pandemic, and their trust in management and sense of a productive workplace fell further than other essential workers'.

Health workers had worse outcomes in 2022 than in 2018. CDC.

Harassment and mental health

Health workers who were harassed were far more likely to report symptoms:

Harassment is linked to poorer mental health. CDC.

Supportive workplaces help

How health workers saw their workplace shaped how much the pandemic weighed on them. Those who trusted management had fewer symptoms of burnout — a sign that a supportive workplace can buffer mental distress. Workplaces are more supportive when there is:

• participation in decisions;
• trust between management and workers;
• helpful supervisors who promote stress prevention, psychological health and productivity;
• a workplace free of harassment;
• enough time to get the work done.

What can be done

CDC calls the findings a wake-up call: health workers' mental health needs immediate attention and decisive action.

Employers can:

• Improve conditions that build trust in management and prevent burnout — adequate staffing, helpful supervision and preventing harassment.
• Bring workers into decisions, with two-way communication.
• Reduce the stigma of seeking help by dropping intrusive mental health questions from credentialing.
• Provide paid leave for illness, family needs and rest — and encourage its use.

Six steps to start:

1. Model and support taking time off.
2. Include workers in decision-making.
3. Value worker safety and health.
4. Assign a senior leader to promote staff well-being.
5. Ensure adequate staffing.
6. Train supervisors to provide support.

Employers can take steps now. CDC.

Supervisors and workers can talk together about improving conditions, use the study to show why it matters, and discuss how better workplaces benefit everyone's health.

Everyone can thank health workers for their essential work and treat them with understanding and respect.

More

• The full report: Vital Signs: Health Worker Perceived Working Conditions and Symptoms of Poor Mental Health — Quality of Worklife Survey, United States, 2018–2022 (MMWR)
• Healthcare worker well-being and workplace violence prevention for nurses (NIOSH)
• Understanding and preventing burnout among public health workers
• The Surgeon General's advisory on health worker burnout

Sources

Based on "Health Workers Face a Mental Health Crisis," Vital Signs, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (updated October 24, 2023); a work of the United States government in the public domain. The infographics are CDC's; the page's stock-photo collage is not reproduced.