New studies reveal growing epidemic of nurse suicides in the US

Alex Johnson 

New studies show that nurse suicides are reaching epidemic proportions, as the mental health strain on these health care workers is driving increasing numbers of them to take their own lives. MedPage Today last month analyzed national data extracted from Archives of Psychiatric Nursing, a research division of the University of California San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine, which conducted the first national investigation of nurse suicides in more than 20 years.

Judy Davidson, RN, DNP, and her colleagues at USCD acquired most of their data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS). The researchers found that suicide incidence among nurses, male and female alike, was significantly higher than in the general population. For female nurses, the incidence of suicide was 11.97 per 100,000 while the incidence for male nurses was found to be more than three times that rate, at 39.8 per 100,000.

One researcher for the study told MedPage Today, “This national data confirms what we previously suspected given our local findings, that nurses are at higher risk of suicide than the general population.” Among the subgroups of nurses at higher risk for suicide were nurse anesthetists and retired nurses.

The study also determined the methods of suicides that were the most prevalent. According to the researchers, suicides frequently involved pharmaceuticals, at a rate of 35.1 percent, while firearms were used at a rate of 33.7 percent. Nurses’ access to drugs plays no small role in this distribution. Among the general US population, firearms and pharmaceuticals account for 55.1 percent and 9.1 percent of suicides, respectively.

A study released by Dr. Ben Windsor-Shellard in 2015 linked the disturbing disparity between suicides among female nurses and suicides in the general female population to the access to lethal doses of medications. Windsor-Shellard also noted that lower-paid health care practitioners had higher rates of suicide than higher-paid managers and CEOs.

Davidson, a psychiatrist and nurse, said her interest in the issue of nurse suicides arose after three nurses at UCSD took their own lives within a brief time-span. In 2018, Davidson coauthored a 2018 National Academy of Medicine paper which found that nurses work in one of the most high-pressure environments in the US, with demands for optimal performance being a decisive factor in accelerating feelings of distress and depression.

Besides being in a stressful work environment, nurses are frequently exposed to some of the most disheartening forms of human suffering and death, which contributes to ethics-related stress and increasing dissatisfaction with their work. Although the prevalence of major depressive disorder among nurses is not known, one study mentioned in the paper said that depressive symptoms are found in 41 percent, while another reported 18 percent.

Of the 18 states that were included in the NVDRS’s data set, the researchers found 205 suicides among the 14,774 documented. According to the study, “Nurses were statistically significantly more likely to have reported mental health problems, history of treatment for mental illness, history of previous suicide attempt, leaving a suicide note and physical health problems than the general population.”

Despite the alarming increases in suicide attempts and depressive symptoms, hospitals and clinics have done very little to alleviate the emotional burdens that plague nurses. Nurses have reported a lack of social and professional support within their work settings. They are trained to work under the most strenuous conditions, dealing with human beings hard-hit by discouraging, sometimes tragic circumstances.

Nurses work in high-speed inpatient settings and are exposed to patients’ debilitating physical diseases and psychological trauma. Although institutions may vary, health care environments in general, and for nurses in particular, are known to be harsh and intimidating, causing workers to suppress their feelings and become emotionally aloof until these conditions take their toll.

Leah Helmbrecht, a traveling nurse, wrote an op-ed on nurse.org about her frustrating experience as a new nurse, “I felt like I was in an abusive relationship...with my job,” said Leah. For every shift, she would have to care for six to eight patients, doing things from inserting catheters and helping patients to the bathroom to monitoring vitals and discharging patients.

These arduous tasks would have to be completed all while getting yelled at by patients and their families for the delay in responding to their requests. “It got to the point where I would go to work every day to get yelled at and go home and cry. I was put on an antidepressant, which helped numb the pain, but didn’t make it go away.”