Depressed Nurses Make More Medical Errors [medpagetoday.com]

Nursing is a brutal field. The issues this article discusses and the ones that @Karen Clemmer points out are reason enough on their own for them to be addressed, but when you compound that with a whole generation of nurses retiring and about to retire, increased educational requirements for nurses,  competition for new recruits from other better-paying and less demanding fields, and an aging population the care needs of which are already beginning to strain healthcare and healthcare providers, and you've got a recipe for disaster.

I think the issues are more complex and not limited to nurses working in hospitals.  A precursor common across settings is an impossible workload, lack of (or worse) administrative support, and the caring & compassionate nature of individuals (male and female) that choose to work in the healthcare field - that drives them (me) to try harder, work harder, stay longer hours .... in an attempt to meet the needs of our target population (hospital patients, new moms, children, etc.) at the expense of our own health - mental and physical.

Yes, improved nurse to patient ratios do result in fewer medication errors and better health outcomes - for the patient.  What about the nurse?

We need to look at the root cause of the depressive symptoms.  And we need to acknowledge that those working in the helping profession, on average, have higher prevalence of ACEs than the general public.  Now mix in caring, dedicated individuals working impossible assignments.  Its a wonder that more nurses aren't depressed!

The attached article delves a bit deeper into this subject - including a look at "horizontal aggression". 

The time for trauma informed work places - in policy AND practice is now! 

From page 658 of the attached article:
"Disturbingly, nurses tended not to report incidents owing to potential or actual organisational barriers (i.e. poor management response, no clear policy for workplace aggression management pre incident, during the incident and/ or post incident) and personal barriers (i.e. fear of stigma and/ or vote of no confidence from peers and managers, previous experience of no action from management, normalising the event)."

Good point, Laura. I think toxic work environments have a LOT to do with the depression of nurses and people in organizations in other sectors, too.

This makes me wonder if there's any connection between depression in nurses and patient/nurse ratio. So many hospitals have drastically cut direct patient-care staff, so nurses are now expected to take on many more patients per shift (although I believe there's research that shows better outcomes for patients in hospitals with relatively low nurse-to-patient ratios, but don't quote me on that) than they once did. Compound that with shift work, 12+hour workdays, the numerous other stresses of working with ill patients, and, thanks to insurance and the threat of lawsuits, the need to spend as much time charting on the computer as they do providing bedside care, and there's a lot to contribute to depression.

I would hope that in addition to providing resources for treating depression, they'd also investigate the causes of the depression in nurses.