Mental Health Training: How It Benefits Your Healthcare Organization
Healthcare training programs can enhance employee skill sets, teach proper usage of the latest technology, and prepare workers for industry-recognized certification exams. Another type of training that provides benefits is mental health training, and it’s often overlooked despite mental illness affecting so many people nationwide — many of whom are our healthcare caregivers.
The State of Mental Health for Healthcare Workers
On January 16, 2025, data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) indicated that 26% of healthcare providers have mental health symptoms severe enough to qualify for diagnosis; however, only one in five have sought care for them in the past year.2
A 2024 study adds that more than a third of public health workers feel burnt out,3 with Indeed’s “Pulse of Healthcare 2024 Report” further revealing:4
A 2024 study published in Scientific Reports found that since the pandemic, psychological distress and depersonalization have increased in hospital workers and their feelings of emotional exhaustion have stayed relatively the same, even amidst declines in virus case rates.5
Impacts of Poor Healthcare Worker Mental Health
The status of our healthcare workforce’s mental health is concerning, especially because its impacts can be far-reaching — affecting employees themselves, patients, and entire organizations.
Employee Impacts
Poor mental health can affect employee engagement. If a worker feels stressed, exhausted, or overwhelmed, they may find it difficult to be engaged or motivated at work. Their productivity may decline or they might care less about the quality of their work.
Mental health issues can also impact workers physically. Chronic stress contributes to an elevated risk of heart attack and stroke,7 for instance, while depression increases the risk of diabetes and heart disease.8 Chronic health issues such as these can lead to more time off work and increased medical expenses, creating even more stress due to financial strain.
Patient Impacts
Research has shown that when healthcare staff experience negative emotions, it can directly affect patient care and indirectly affect patient safety, the latter through higher call-in rates and elevated worker turnover.9
Organizational Impacts
Employees’ mental health can affect the healthcare organizations they work for in the form of:
- Increased staffing shortages. If workers call in regularly for mental health reasons, it can be difficult to maintain appropriate staffing levels.
- Lower talent retention. Inadequate employee mental health support may create challenges in retaining top talent because of burnout, increasing their intent to leave.10
- Less efficient operations. Reductions in employee productivity can inhibit an organization’s operational efficiency.
- Elevated financial costs. Lost productivity from depression and anxiety alone costs U.S. employers an estimated $1 trillion per year.11 High rates of employee absenteeism and turnover can also affect the bottom line.
Mental Health Training: The Benefits for Healthcare Organizations
Providing your healthcare teams with mental health training can offer several benefits.
Support (and Knowledge) for Your Healthcare Teams
Employers can support healthcare workers by providing them with information about the importance of mental wellness and interventions available for mental illness or distress. Mental health training also teaches team members effective strategies for their own psychological self-care and resilience.
Improved Patient Care
Training can teach healthcare workers how to recognize potential mental health issues in patients. They learn which mental disorders are most common (and their symptoms) and increase their understanding of how to reduce the stigma of mental illness to encourage help-seeking behaviors.
A Stronger, Healthier Healthcare Workforce
Good mental health enables a person to cope with life stressors, understand their abilities, learn and work effectively, and be a contributing member of the community.14 Together, these qualities can contribute to a stronger healthcare workforce, making mental health training worth the investment.
Nasium Training Offers Online Mental Health Training
To help you take the next step, Nasium Training offers a Mental Health Foundations for Healthcare Professionals training program. This online training is eight weeks in length and requires only eight hours of instruction and/or study per week. It covers topics such as:
- Mental disorder signs and symptoms
- Trauma informed care
- Legal and professional responsibilities for privacy and reporting
- Mental health interventions and applications
- Self-care strategies and mental health resilience
Contact us to learn more about this mental health training program, or to discuss how it can be customized to meet your workforce goals and needs.
1 Zisook S, et al. Supporting Healthcare Workers Well-Being and Suicide Prevention: The HEAR Program May 2009 – April 2023. J Med Reg. https://meridian.allenpress.com/jmr/article/110/3/18/503777/Supporting-Healthcare-Workers-Well-Being-and
2 CDC. Gaps in Mental Health Care-Seeking Among Health Care Providers During the COVID-19 Pandemic – United States, September 2022–May 2023. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/74/wr/mm7402a1.htm
3 Nagarajan R, et al. Global estimate of burnout among the public health workforce: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Hum Resour Health. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11110232/
4 Mendoza A. Indeed’s “Pulse of Healthcare 2024 Report” Reveals Healthcare Worker Priorities and Employer Misperceptions. Indeed Career Guide. https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/news/pulse-of-healthcare-2024-report
5 Maunder RG, et al. A longitudinal study of hospital workers’ mental health from fall 2020 to the end of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2023. Sci Rep. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-77493-5
6 Harter J. U.S. Employee Engagement Sinks to 10-Year Low. Gallup. https://www.gallup.com/workplace/654911/employee-engagement-sinks-year-low.aspx
7 Harvard Health Publishing. Understanding the stress response. https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/understanding-the-stress-response
8 CDC. About Mental Health. https://www.cdc.gov/mental-health/about/index.html
9 Sattar R, et al. A systematic review of workplace triggers of emotions in the healthcare environment, the emotions experienced, and the impact on patient safety. BMC Health Svc Res. https://bmchealthservres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12913-024-11011-1
10 Howard J, Houry D. Protecting the Mental Health and Well-Being of the Nation’s Health Workforce. AJPH. https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/AJPH.2023.307475
11 WHO. Mental health at work. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/mental-health-at-work
12 NAMI The 2024 NAMI Workplace Mental Health Poll. https://www.nami.org/Support-Education/Publications-Reports/Survey-Reports/The-2024-NAMI-Workplace-Mental-Health-Poll/
13 CDC. National Health Statistics Reports; November 7, 2024. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr213.pdf
14 WHO. Mental health. https://www.who.int/health-topics/mental-health#tab=tab_1
15 Anger KW, et al. Addressing Health Care Workers’ Mental Health: A Systematic Review of Evidence-Based Interventions and Current Resources. Am J Public Health. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10916736/
