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Educating on Mental Health Topics - It Is About More Than Just the Patient

Educating on Mental Health Topics - It Is About More Than Just the Patient

Mental health topics - from mood disorder to eating disorder to substance abuse - has a stigma.  Negative or bias attitudes surround mental health topics from past experiences, societal pressures, professional encounters, and even personal unease.  Those suffering from mental illness or dealing with mental health topics are deserving of care, respect, and dignity.  Educating and preparing healthcare professionals for future encounters with mental health, and the vast array of topics encompassed, is important.  Educating on mental health topics can help more than just the patient, though.  It can help the professional.
If you or someone you know is struggling with self-harm, suicidal thoughts, or wanting to just disappear, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (800-273-8255).

 Suicide Rates and Depression Amongst Nurses on the Rise

 An article featured in American Nurse Today, a publication of the American Nurse Association, Rizzo (2018) reminds readers that mental health considerations has no discrimination; anyone can encounter or suffer mental illness, regardless of background, socioeconomic status, and education.  No one is immune to mental illness; no one is "immune to suicide" (Rizzo, 2018: 1).  Mental illness and mental health concerns are on the rise in healthcare.  Nurses are among the health professionals who are at risk for suicide.  

Why Do Those Who Care Also Suffer?

Nursing and other healthcare professionals may fall through the cracks, so to speak.  Personal stress, past and present mental illness, mood disorders, high stress environments, access to means, know how, and past attempts are all possible risk factors (Rizzo, 2018: 2).  The reality of the situation is healthcare is a stressful field.  There is an undertreatment of stress and depression in healthcare (Rizzo, 2018: 2).  From my own experience, debriefing after an unusual or traumatic experience is rarely done; this leaves the nurse to attempt to come to terms with these incidents on their own.  I actually left the nursing profession for a few years, many years ago, because I had ineffective coping skills after a traumatic experience.  I chose to leave the profession and, at the time, I had the financial means to do so.  Not everyone feels that they can leave the profession.  Not everyone realizes that they have ineffective coping skills.  Not everyone knows something is wrong.

What Can We Do?

We need to look out for one another.  I took a break from nursing for five years.  When I came back, I had five years of growth.  I was more of a patient advocate.  I was more of an education advocate.  I was more of a nursing advocate.
  • Learn more about mental health topics
  • Take a Crisis Prevention and Intervention course   
  • Learn the risk factors of suicide
  • Work to create a positive working environment
  • Break the stigma of mental illness
 I teach about mental health topics, therapeutic communication, and patient education in all of the courses I teach.  It is important to me that my students are ready for the real world of healthcare.  I want them to be patient advocates, but I also want them to be self-advocates.  It is not okay that nurses and healthcare provides suffer in silence.  It is not okay that nursing suicide rates are slowly increasing.  It is not okay that mental health topics are taboo in our society.  It is time to change this.

Learn More!

If you or someone you know is struggling with self-harm, suicidal thoughts, or wanting to just disappear, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (800-273-8255).
Learn more about Suicide Among Nurses, mental health awareness, and suicide prevention by reading the article, Suicide Among Nurses: What We Don't Know Might Hurt Us.  

Reference
Rizzo, L.H. (2018). Suicide among nurses: What we don't know might hurt us. American Nurse Today, 13, 10-15. 

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