Raising Awareness of Nurse Suicide | Life of a Nurse

I had never considered nurse suicide. Recently, within a few days of each other, this topic presented itself in two different ways. I read that frontline nurses are at high risk of moral injury with resulting mental health disorders leading to suicide and then I read the story of a neurological nurse who took his life in California.

Raising Awareness of Nurse Suicide | Life of a Nurse

Recently I was looking for information on the effects of the pandemic on those with mental health disorders. MULTIPLE articles referred to a mental health crisis among nurses leading to an increase in suicides. A short time later, I learned of the suicide of a nurse in California. I was shaken with a jolt in trying to accept this reality. This article contains some of what I learned about nurse suicide.  

Raising Nurse Suicide Awareness 

Many nurses would attest that their decision to become a nurse was a calling. In other words, their conscience led them to the profession to be healers and to define success as knowing another life has breathed easier due to their efforts. (Thoreau). With experience, although, Nurses are transitioned from this altruistic mindset to feelings of hopelessness due to suffering from years of burnout. Burnout and being stressed to the brink led to psychological distress and mental health problems such as anxiety disorders, depression, substance abuse and suicidality.1 Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit.  

What exactly do nurses experience? 

Moral injury is the name given to the feelings of guilt, shame, betrayal, and loss of trust that nurses develop as a result of working in prolonged stressful conditions. It is derived from the extenuating situations that are repeated in a crisis that cause a sense of powerlessness. Some of these situations might involve deciding who gets triaged first, allocating resources, witnessing death that they feel didn’t need to happen, having to follow unfair policies, and feeling guilty about surviving or potentially infecting others.2 

A Tragic Example 

On January 18, 2022, Michael O'Dell BSN, RN left his shift early. He was working the night shift at Stanford Hospital in San Francisco, California, and told his co-workers he had to get something from his car. He never returned. Two days later his body was found and the suspected cause of death was suicide. In an online article by Stat Health by Andrew Joseph, it was revealed that Michael had made earlier facebook post warnings of “the deleterious effects of the pandemic on all healthcare workers navigating it”. The article mentioned that his GoFundMe page has numerous posts of current and retired nurses who have shared his hopelessness and depression due to their careers.3 

What is the Nurse Suicide Rate? 

It’s reported that the suicide rate of nurses is greater than the general population but finding actual statistics is difficult. An article written in 2018 entitled, “Nurse Suicide Breaking the Silence”, identified that there weren’t any statistics for the death of nurses by suicide although there were easily attainable rates for physicians, educators, police officers, and military officers. Writers of the article learned that there is a lack of standardized reporting of death by suicide.  The article explained that the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) maintains a National Violent Death Reporting System which is the most comprehensive death registry by suicide by occupation. This database is available only by application. At the time that the article was written, the authors had submitted an application to gain access.4 

What can be done?   

There can’t be more urgency to develop ways to support nurses and other clinicians who have been on the frontline. Multiple articles point out the deleterious effects of the pandemic on this vulnerable population.  

  1. Development of a program similar to the World Trade Center Health Program which provides monitoring and treatment for responders and survivors.1 
  2. The National Academy of Medicine’s Action Collaborative on Clinician Wellbeing and Resilience offers resources to support well-being-focused programs across sectors.1
  3. Nurse suicide prevention starts with crisis intervention. This gives access to an article by Judy E. Davidson et al that provides an enormous amount of information including why nurses are at risk, identifying symptoms of depression, resources, crisis management, how to communicate, and more.
  4. Replicating the Healer Education Assessment and Referral Program (HEAR) program for nurses. It was created to address the suicide of physicians. It has been endorsed by the AMA as best practice.5 

Some Good News 

The U.S. suicide Hotline-988- is set to go live in July 2022. President Biden’s physical year 2023 budget includes $51.7 billion in new mandatory investments over the next ten years to expand access to mental health services 

References

1Preventing a Parallel Pandemic - A National Strategy to Protect Clinicians’ Well-Being

2U.S Department of Veteran's Affairs: PTSD: National Center for PTSD

3‘I fear the long-term effects’: Before his death, a nurse warned of the pandemic’s toll on health care workers

4National Academy of Medicine: Nurse Suicide Breaking the Silence

5How one program may help prevent suicide in nurses

 

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peblevins

About peblevins

I am a nurse with 28 years experience in working with patients. Most of that time was in the hospital in the CCU, ICU, medical surgery, telemetry and rehabilitation units. Most recently I have changed direction all together and work in community mental health.

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Chilling. 

Things change when we refuse to continue working in environments that are unsafe, emotionally tormenting, and unsupportive. Nurses are needed in those environments too (we're needed everywhere), but I won't be one of them. Have to know your worth and realize YOU are uniquely qualified and challenged with advocating for yourself and your well-being in this life. What a scary and yet empowering proposition. 

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Specializes in Med-Surg, ICU.

TW: I almost became one of those nurses. My PTSD, depression, and insomnia were so out of control after all this time of horrible work environments and struggles in my personal life. I was going to end it after my shift, but someone confronted me. 

I quit that job and had to start somewhere new. I breached a contract and I have to pay back a bonus but my family and doctors convinced me that my life was worth more than $2,500. 

The issues causing this should have been addressed decades ago. Witnessing horrible things and making tough decisions come with the profession, but no one warned us how much the system would screw us over. Stretching us unreasonably thin, putting profit over people (I've worked for non profits too, they're just as bad), not protecting us, and not letting us actually do what we came to do, which is to help people. I have a lot of suggestions to help with the issues but they were never heeded. 

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Specializes in Geriatrics, Dialysis.

A sadly timely article indeed. There was a nurse suicide while on the job at Kaiser's Santa Clara campus just a few days ago.  Beyond sad.  Here is a link to one of the many articles detailing this recent tragedy: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/04/30/kais-a30.html

Fair warning, this particular article does get political so if you are looking for an unbiased view this isn't it.  Unfortunately most of the articles I found are behind the paywall of local news or similarly biased toward one political party or another.  Which is sad by itself that a nurse suicide while on duty isn't considered newsworthy enough to report outside of local publications and news agencies that report with an obvious political bias.

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Specializes in Community Mental Health.
On 4/24/2022 at 10:49 PM, LaZarca said:

TW: I almost became one of those nurses. My PTSD, depression, and insomnia were so out of control after all this time of horrible work environments and struggles in my personal life. I was going to end it after my shift, but someone confronted me. 

I quit that job and had to start somewhere new. I breached a contract and I have to pay back a bonus but my family and doctors convinced me that my life was worth more than $2,500. 

The issues causing this should have been addressed decades ago. Witnessing horrible things and making tough decisions come with the profession, but no one warned us how much the system would screw us over. Stretching us unreasonably thin, putting profit over people (I've worked for non profits too, they're just as bad), not protecting us, and not letting us actually do what we came to do, which is to help people. I have a lot of suggestions to help with the issues but they were never heeded. 

LaZarca,

This must have been very difficult for you to share. It means a lot. Yes you are invaluable!

You are so right in saying that these issues should have been addressed decades ago. Many years ago, I worked on the floor with a nurse who applied for and was given the administrative job of ensuring patient satisfaction, attending to pt. complaints, helping patients with advanced directives etc. I caught up with her after a few meetings with administration and asked how they respond to suggestions/complaints of nurses and she said that the CEO responded "nurses will always complain". I felt totally dejected and realized then there would be no help from them and it was up to me to decide when I had enough. 

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Specializes in Cardiovascular.

I too agree with LaZarca in that the issues we face today should have been addressed a long, long time ago. The pandemic only exacerbated an already failing and completely dysfunctional healthcare system. My own personal burnout as a nurse, wife, and mother started before Covid hit. While mental health may be "required" to be recognized by nurse managers and directors, it doesn't necessarily mean it is accepted. As I was told by one nursing supervisor, " I was faking my depression." And as I've worked alongside other nurses who say anxiety is, "just a bunch of crap. They just need to get over it." It is hard enough dealing with the stigma of mental health from the outside than dealing with the ignorance, hypocrisy, and bias from within my own people.

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