The ‘gap’ in mental health support for nurses across the globe is threatening workforce sustainability, especially after the Covid-19 pandemic, a new report from the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned.
Its latest State of the World’s Nursing (SOWN) report – published on International Nurses Day – found ‘too few’ countries have provisions in place to support the mental wellbeing of nurses.
‘There is an urgent need for a coordinated response from governments, employers and society to protect and safeguard the mental health and well-being of nurses,’ the report said.
The report, which follows on from the first SOWN in 2020, sets out the latest data, trends and challenges within nursing across 194 countries.
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While the findings suggest some ‘global improvement’ in nursing shortages, it also found that progress was ‘unevenly distributed’ across the world, and that ‘persistent and worsening inequities’ exist within nursing.
The need to better protect nurse mental health
The report highlighted that while ‘most’ countries have laws to support and safeguard nurses in their working environment, ‘too few have provisions for mental wellbeing’.
Among the responding countries within the report’s research, just 42% said they had mental health provisions for the nursing workforce – compared to laws on minimum wages (94%), social protection measures (92%) and health worker safety (78%).
There was also ‘significant regional variations’ when it came to mental health support provisions across the WHO regions – though the number of responding countries on this issue was also low and varied.
The WHO stressed that better understanding of what mental health support is in place for nurses across the globe was vital and that good implementation of such support would aid nurse ‘safety, motivation and retention’.
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‘The gap in mental health support threatens workforce sustainability, particularly after Covid-19’s multidimensional impact on health and care workers,’ it said.
Support for nurses ‘inconsistent and slow’
Commenting on the report, International Council of Nurses (ICN) chief executive and co-chair of the SOWN report Howard Catton, said: ‘In the five years since the first SOWN report, nurses have played a vital role in responding to multiple global crises and health challenges yet support for the nursing workforce has been inconsistent and slow.’
‘We are used to nurses safeguarding society from catastrophic health outcomes when disaster strikes, just as airbags deploy to protect us in a collision.
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‘But without immediate action to invest in and care for our nursing workforce, we risk a perilous future where the nursing airbag will not inflate to offer vital protection to individuals’ and populations’ health.’
This year’s International Nurses Day centred on supporting the health and wellbeing of the workforce and aimed to bring about ‘actionable solutions’ to improve nurses’ long-term health – as per the theme set by the ICN.
