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Awareness weeks guide

World Mental Health Day

World Mental Health Day

10 October 2024

“Mental Health at Work"

This World Mental Health Day, WHO is uniting with partners to highlight the vital connection between mental health and work. Safe, healthy working environments can act as a protective factor for mental health. Unhealthy conditions including stigma, discrimination, and exposure to risks like harassment and other poor working conditions, can pose significant risks, affecting mental health, overall quality of life and consequently participation or productivity at work. With 60% of the global population in work, urgent action is needed to ensure work prevents risks to mental health and protects and supports mental health at work. WHO

UpToDate

Cochrane Library

Articles

Healthcare leadership

Research

Strategies to improve mental health

E-books

E-journals

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Articles

Healthcare leadership

The relationship between negative leadership behaviours and silence among nurses
Negative leadership behaviour can affect the silent behaviour of nurses. Implications for Nursing Management: Hospitals need to take the initiative to build a harmonious and safe working environment, correctly recognize and identify negative management behaviour, take appropriate and effective measures to enhance the positive leadership of nurse managers, and make an effort to prevent nursing staff’s exposure to the negative management of direct leadership and mental health threats, which is a key point that hospital administrators and health policymakers tend to overlook. hTis is also effective for enhancing the leadership of hospital administrators. Journal of nursing management 6 August 2024

“They say they listen. But do they really listen?”: A qualitative study of hospital doctors’ experiences of organisational deafness, disconnect and denial
The sharing of information and feedback directly from service-providing staff to healthcare organisational management is vital for organisational culture and service improvement. However, hospital doctors report feeling unable to communicate effectively with management to provide evidence and affect improvement, and this can impact job satisfaction, workplace relations, service delivery and ultimately patient safety. In this paper, we draw on data elicited from a Mobile Instant Messaging Ethnography (MIME) study involving 28 hospital doctors working in Irish hospitals, to explore the barriers preventing them from speaking up and effecting change, and the impact of this on staff morale and services. We identify three major barriers, consistent with previous literature, to effective feedback and communication: (1) organisational deafness, (2) disconnect between managers and frontline staff, and (3) denial of the narratives and issues raised. We draw these together to identify key implications from these findings for healthcare managers, and suggest policy and practice improvements. Health services management research 31 May 2024

Understanding what leaders can do to facilitate healthcare workers’ feeling valued: improving our knowledge of the strongest burnout mitigator
What is already known on this topic?

  • Feeling valued is one of the most consequential contributors to burnout and intent to leave yet there is no large-scale research that elucidates how healthcare organisations and leaders can help healthcare workers feel valued.

What this study adds

  • By conducting the largest qualitative study on this topic to date, we now know with greater clarity what leaders can do to help healthcare workers feel valued.

How this study might affect research practice or policy

  • Leaders in healthcare organisations can implement specific initiatives to enhance healthcare workers feeling valued, and thereby have a high likelihood of meaningfully reducing burnout and intent to leave.

BMJ leader 5 June 2024

The effects of different types of organisational workplace mental health interventions on mental health and wellbeing in healthcare workers: a systematic review
Organisational interventions in healthcare workers can be effective in improving mental health, especially in reducing burnout. Intervention types where the change in the work environment constitutes the intervention had the highest level of evidence. More research is needed for SMEs and for healthcare workers other than hospital-based physicians and nurses. International archives of occupational and environmental health 2 May 2024

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Research

The chain mediating role of negative emotions at work and meaning in life between interpersonal conflict at work and depressive symptoms among nurses: a multicenter cross-sectional study
Interpersonal conflict at work has a direct positive effect on depressive symptoms among nurses. Meanwhile, interpersonal conflict at work can influence depressive symptoms among nurses through the mediating effect of negative emotions at work and the chain mediating effect between negative emotions at work and meaning in life. BMC nursing 29 August 2024

Suicide rates among physicians compared with the general population in studies from 20 countries: gender stratified systematic review and meta-analysis
Standardised suicide rate ratios for male and female physicians decreased over time. However, the rates remained increased for female physicians. The findings of this meta-analysis are limited by a scarcity of studies from regions outside of Europe, the United States, and Australasia. These results call for continued efforts in research and prevention of physician deaths by suicide, particularly among female physicians and at risk subgroups. BMJ 21 August 2024

Personal trauma history and secondary traumatic stress in mental health professionals: A systematic review
What Is known on the subject

  • Mental health professionals have typically experienced more traumatic events in their own lives, compared with the general population.
  • Mental health professionals work with patients who sometimes share their history and experience of traumatic events.
  • Listening to these firsthand accounts of trauma can place the mental health professional at risk of experiencing secondary traumatic stress.
  • Secondary traumatic stress refers to symptoms of post-traumatic stress that are caused by indirect exposure to trauma.

What the paper adds to existing knowledge

  • Personal trauma history and secondary traumatic stress are common in mental health professionals.
  • Mental health professionals are at higher risk of devel-oping secondary traumatic stress when they have their own experiences of trauma.

What are the implications for practice

  • Identifying those who are most at risk of developing secondary traumatic stress has implications for education and health care settings.
  • Embedding teaching about the possible psychological impacts of secondary traumatic stress for mental health professionals with their own experiences of trauma could lead to improved well-being of the practitioner and support services to retain skilled staff.
  • In clinical services, those at risk of developing secondary traumatic stress in practice should receive targeted help and support, such as specialized supervision and debriefs.

Journal of psychiatric and mental health nursing 7 July 2024

Longitudinal associations of depression, anxiety, and stress among healthcare workers assisting patients with end-stage cancer during the COVID-19 pandemic: the moderator role of emotional exhaustion
Overall, the results of this study highlight that emotional exhaustion moderated depression and anxiety over time. Psychological interventions to promote psychological mental health among healthcare workers assisting patients with end-stage cancer should carefully consider these findings. BMC psychology 20 June 2024

New insights into physician burnout and turnover intent: a validated measure of physician fortitude
Results from this study empirically demonstrate that fortitude is significantly related to burnout, and turnover intent. This new fortitude measure adds a new perspective to assist in the development of more effective interventions. Opportunities for future research are discussed. BMC health services research 18 june 2024

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Strategies to improve mental health

“Learn from errors”: Post-traumatic growth among second victims
The study provides novel insights into the complex interplay between perceived threats, coping styles, and social support in facilitating  post-traumatic growth (PTG),  among second victims. By bolstering social support and promoting adaptive coping strategies, the adverse effects of PSIs can be mitigated, transforming them into opportunities for resilience and growth, and offering a fresh perspective on managing PSIs in healthcare settings. BMC public health 28 August 2024

Strategies for adapting under pressure: an interview study in intensive care units
What is already known on this?

  • Due to increasing pressures on the health system, clinical teams have to adapt everyday practice in order to manage risk and maintain patient flow, but there are currently very few developed strategies to manage these pressures.

What this study adds

  • This study empirically presents a menu of strategies used in intensive care for adapting under pressure gathered through interviews with different professionals involved in patient care and the running of the service.

How this study might affect research, practice or policy

  • These findings could be used as the basis of training programmes for intensive care units to develop a set of coordinated strategies for adapting under pressure.

BMJ quality and safety 23 August 2024

Evaluating anti-bullying training in surgery: surgeons’ perceptions from Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand
This study finds the RACS full-day anti-bullying training moderately effective in reducing bullying in surgical workplaces. However, enhancing its impact requires a sustained, multi-faceted strategy, including broader policy reforms, accountability measures, and cultural changes, to foster a long term respectful environment in surgical settings. Australian health review 5 August 2024

The effectiveness of e-mental health interventions on stress, anxiety, and depression among healthcare professionals: a systematic review and meta-analysis
In general, e-mental health interventions significantly improve the psychological health of healthcare staff. Future high-quality, large-scale studies targeting healthcare professionals and specific intervention scenarios are warranted. Systematic reviews 30 May 2024

Stigma by association among alcohol and other drug and harm reduction workers: Implications for workplace outcomes
Identifying staff experiences of stigma by association and developing support and advocacy mechanisms to address this is likely to be key to reducing these experiences and ultimately to increasing positive work-place outcomes for alcohol or other drugs (AOD) and harm reduction staff. Drug and alcohol review 2 May 2024

Evaluation of a culture change program to reduce unprofessional behaviours by hospital co-workers in Australian hospitals
The Ethos program was associated with significant reductions in the prevalence of reported unprofessional behaviours and improved capacity of hospital staff to speak-up. These results add to evidence that staff will actively engage with a system that supports informal feedback to co-workers about their behaviours and is facilitated by trained peer messengers. BMC health services research 12 June 2024

The effectiveness of e-mental health interventions on stress, anxiety, and depression among healthcare professionals: a systematic review and meta-analysis
In general, e-mental health interventions significantly improve the psychological health of healthcare staff. Future high-quality, large-scale studies targeting healthcare professionals and specific intervention scenarios are warranted. Systematic reviews 30 May 2024

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E-books

This is just a sample of the e-books the library subscribes to – you will need your library login

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E-Journals

A sample of the journals the library subscribes to – you will need your library login

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