Think about a typical shift for a nurse. There’s a code blue (a life-threatening emergency), hard conversations with patients’ families, and dozens more tough moments along the way.
Nursing has tremendous emotional and physical demands, which can build up and cause various difficulties for people in this critical role. Mental health treatment for nurses can help with conditions like burnout, depression, and compassion fatigue — all of which are common in the nursing profession.
This article will cover:
Nursing asks so much from those who take on the responsibility of the role. It takes real physical and emotional effort, with life-or-death decisions required each and every shift. Some of the biggest challenges that nurses face include the following.
Nursing shortages have reached a scale that is disrupting both the field as a whole and what the job looks like for individual nurses. Global data shows the nursing workforce is facing a deficit in the millions, with nurses expected to fill the gap in the meantime. That often means more patients with fewer resources to care for them safely.[1]
This can create a feedback loop. Heavier workloads are driving nurses to burnout, and burnout causes nurses to leave the job. Each departure then pushes the workload even higher for those who remain.
Nursing also puts people in situations where they don’t feel able to provide care to the best of their ability. This can be the result of insufficient staff numbers, resources, or authority.
The gap between clinical judgement and practical realities is called moral distress. It can directly contribute to the emotional exhaustion that frequently leads to burnout in nurses.
Rotating and overnight shifts can be a major strain on sleep, which, in turn, can make every other stressor that much harder.
Poor sleep lowers your emotional resilience, which can make it harder to meet the demands of the job the following day. Nurses sometimes describe ongoing emotional dysregulation. This means intense negative feelings during a shift that hit harder and take longer to settle in and resolve than they used to.
Nurses regularly witness death, trauma, grief, and patient and family suffering. In many cases, they don’t have enough time to process any of this during their shift.
Over a period of months and years, this kind of exposure can take a massive toll.
Nurses report mental health symptoms at higher rates than most other professions.[2] Some examples of this can include:
In severe cases, unaddressed burnout and depression can cause thoughts of self-harm or suicidal ideation. If you’re having thoughts of hurting yourself, the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is free and available any time, by call or text.
Mental health conditions and symptoms can feed into each other for nurses. Burnout can make depression worse, depression can feed into feeling anxious, and the cycle continues.
That’s why early intervention is the most effective way to address mental health difficulties. Waiting for your symptoms to get worse can make it far harder to manage and treat them.
Many nurses are constantly exposed to trauma. Depending on the type of nursing, this can include:
Some nurses experience these incidents week after week over their career, causing potentially enormous distress.
Secondary trauma affects a striking percentage of the nursing workforce. One study that polled data from thousands of nurses found a prevalence rate of 57%, with many emergency and trauma nurses facing even higher rates.[4]
Some estimates put the number of nurses who experience secondary trauma as high as 80%, depending on the clinical setting.[4]
Secondary trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in nurses share many of the same symptoms, including:
Learning more about what a PTSD episode involves can help nurses recognize symptoms in themselves as well as for the patients they provide care for.
Nurses are trained to identify trauma responses in others, but this can also, paradoxically, make it harder to recognize these same patterns in themselves.
There’s also a cultural expectation among healthcare workers that difficult cases are just part of the job. Many nurses believe they are expected to push through it and not talk about it, especially to other nurses who have their own challenges to deal with.
Thankfully, trauma-based concerns respond well to treatment, no matter if the trauma stems from a single event or has built up due to repeated exposures at work. Approaches like Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) and trauma-focused CBT can help nurses process what they’ve witnessed.
These are structured, evidence-based approaches that a licensed trauma therapist guides you through over a series of regular sessions, not something to work through alone. These techniques work through the traumatic memories themselves, rather than just the symptoms, so nurses don’t have to carry the memories with them forever.
AMFM is here to help you or your loved one take the next steps towards an improved mental well-being.
Nursing duties run around the clock, but the human body simply wasn’t designed to do so. Rotating and overnight shifts can throw your body clock out of sync with the schedule you keep. That mismatch can carry real consequences.
Studies tracked shift-working nurses to find out how much a person’s circadian rhythm type (whether their body clock naturally runs early or late) and how much shift work they do affect sleep quality and depressive symptoms. They found that both play a role in how well someone sleeps and how depressed they feel. The effects get worse for a nurse whose circadian rhythm is less flexible and who works a lot of night shifts.[5]
In other words, night work hits some nurses harder than others, and a schedule with more rotating shifts makes that worse.
Disrupted sleep and mood symptoms typically follow a familiar pattern. Night shifts suppress the body’s natural melatonin and throw off the sleep-wake cycle. That can cause chronic insomnia with poor sleep and depression, raising the risks for each other as well.
Furthermore, these difficulties usually don’t stay at work. Rotating shifts can make it harder to maintain your relationships and keep up with others working standard hours. This can cause isolation that leaves you with less support when you might be in need of it the most.
While the nursing profession has some structural obstacles to getting help, effective treatment can work around them.
Scheduling is often seen as one of the biggest obstacles to accessing care. Working 12-hour, rotating shifts can make it hard to commit to weekly therapy. Telehealth and flexible appointment scheduling mean nurses can plan treatment around their work duties.
Some nurses may worry that disclosing a mental health condition could put their license at risk, or trigger reporting requirements. But it should be noted that state boards do not typically track people seeking treatment for burnout, and nursing peer assistance programs can offer confidential support.
A Mission For Michael (AMFM) provides treatment for adults experiencing various conditions. Depression support is a phone call away – call 866-478-4383 to learn about our current treatment options.
See our residences in SoCal’s Orange & San Diego Counties.
Take a look at our Metro area homes in Washington County.
View our facilities in Fairfax County, VA within the DC metro area.
View our facilities in Kitsap County, WA 20 miles west of Seattle.
If you’ve been living with feelings of depression or other mental health symptoms, you’re just as deserving as your patients of receiving high-quality, effective care. AMFM (A Mission For Michael) Mental Health Treatment treats all the conditions and difficulties that come with nursing, with care built around what you need.
Some nurses need more structure and support than outpatient care can give. Residential treatment for nurses offers a live-in setting away from the pressures of a shift schedule, with room to focus fully on treatment before going back to work. We offer an intimate, focused mental health treatment experience for adults in home-like settings that are carefully maintained to be peaceful, comfortable spaces.
AMFM Mental Health Treatment also offers multiple levels of outpatient treatment. Our locations in California, Minnesota, Virginia, and Washington accept insurance and are in-network with most major providers. To check your insurance coverage for mental health care, simply complete our confidential online verification form or call us at 866-478-4383.
Reach out to us if you would like to start the admissions process or learn more about how we can support your mental well-being. Our compassionate team is available 24/7 to answer your questions and provide guidance with no obligation.
"*" indicates required fields
100% Confidential
No Commitment
Instant Results
You often can, yes. Flexible hours and telehealth options can all work around rotating shifts, although more severe symptoms and conditions might require reduced hours or taking a temporary leave.
The right treatment approach depends on how mental health difficulties are affecting your life or your ability to work safely.
Look for providers who know about secondary trauma or healthcare-specific challenges. Your company’s employee-assistance program might also be able to help. You can contact AMFM today to find out more about our high-quality support.
At AMFM, we strive to provide the most up-to-date and accurate medical information based on current best practices, evolving information, and our team’s approach to care. Our aim is that our readers can make informed decisions about their healthcare.
Our reviewers are credentialed medical providers specializing and practicing behavioral healthcare. We follow strict guidelines when fact-checking information and only use credible sources when citing statistics and medical information. Look for the medically reviewed badge on our articles for the most up-to-date and accurate information.
If you feel that any of our content is inaccurate or out of date, please let us know at info@amfmhealthcare.com
