According to Catherine A. Stubin, PhD, RN, assistant professor at Rutgers University – Camden (Camden, NJ), there is a “mental health crisis in
nursing.” In 2024, research from Degreechoices, a higher education research group found that 38% of nursing students experienced depression. That is an increase of 9.3% since 2019.
Stubin went on to say “nursing is a very rigorous, difficult, psychologically and physically demanding profession. If students don’t have the tools and resources to adequately deal with these stressors in nursing school, it’s going to carry over into their professional practice.” This is not a new problem, but nursing schools are finally sitting up and taking note.
Nursing school is a highly competitive process. There continues to be a shortage of qualified nurses for many reasons and nursing schools have a shortage of qualified nurse educators. Consequently nursing schools continue to have limited space for new students. In 2022, more than 78,000 qualified nursing applicants were rejected.
Rigors and Pressures and a Lockdown
The competition doesn’t stop with acceptance, nursing schools are under the microscope to produce excellence and turn out highly qualified nurses. The academic rigors and pressure on students to care for sicker patients with more acute and chronic illness under the eye of their professors, creates a highly stressful environment. When combined with the stressors of the fast paced curriculum, long shifts and limited breaks, students are struggling. As institutions recognize the overwhelming effects of these demands on brand new eighteen-year-old students, they have begun to adjust their curriculum to provide more support for the students.
COVID and the lockdown in 2019 and 2020 exacerbated mental health issues for nurses with increased anxiety and depression. Subsequently this led many nurses to leave the profession causing even more shortages. This led to the recognition that in order to heal nurses and deal with the problem, we must learn to communicate about mental health issues. This means talking and listening! In 2022, the data showed that 61% of students experiencing symptoms of anxiety and depression were seeking treatment or counseling and /or taking prescribed medications.
What Nursing Schools are Doing
Nursing schools such as The Ohio State University (OSU) in Columbus, OH began screening incoming students for anxiety, depression and suicidal ideation and then referred to the campus health services as indicated. According to former dean of the College of Nursing, Bernadette Mazurek Melnyk, PhD. APRN-CNP, “if you don’t screen, you don’t know the students are suffering, and we’re able to help the students who need it quickly.”
In addition, other nursing programs added to their screening of applicants and new students as well as advancing their health services counseling. Optional classes have been added to the curriculum to help students learn coping skills such as stress management. Seeing success with these programs, educators have called for them to become core classes, and not just optional choices.
The University of Colorado College of Nursing in Aurora, CO implemented a program during the pandemic to help support students dealing with the Stress Impact and care for COVID-19 using content and facts, exercises and support groups for students. It was such a popular class that it was added to the basic curriculum with some adaptations.
Rutgers Univ. Nursing School in Camden, NJ along with their Student Nursing Association added a pet therapy program. They also added self-care and resilience building strategies combined with wellness programming to their curriculum per Dr. Stubin.
The Univ of Vermont in Burlington, VT instituted an 8-week program for stress management and resiliency. Other options to help reduce depression and anxiety for nursing students include mindfulness and cognitive behavior skills-building.
Again educators and experts are advocating for these strategies, exercises and programs to be included in the curriculum so that students don’t ignore them as options to a program that is already overwhelming. Learning and self-care combined in one class can go a long way to help solve the mental crisis in nursing school.
Wellness for the Future
Creating a culture of wellness and building a workforce of nurses prepared to provide resources and wellness will behoove us all in the long run. Two major factors could be positively affected by this such as the annual $4.6Billon cost to healthcare from burnout and staff turnover, along with preventing medical error which are thehttps://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/emotional-cost-nursing-school-depression-2024a1000l1f?form=fpf third leading cause of death in the US.
Resource: Medscape Medical News, The Emotional Cost of Nursing School: Depression by Jodi Helmer; November 19, 2024 (free registration may be required) https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/emotional-cost-nursing-school-depression-2024a1000l1f?form=fpf
