An interesting article titled “The pathway from mental health, leaves of absence, and return to work of health professionals: Gender and leadership matter,” appears in Healthcare Management Forum written by Ivy L. Bourgeault and et. al. (June 9, 2022, pp. 1-8). The article discusses the results of four health professional case studies involving nurses, physicians, midwives, and dentists as it pertains to their mental health experiences.
In the article the authors sent an online survey was sent to dentists, nurses, doctors, and midwives in Canada between November 2020 and May 2021. The survey asked respondents about mental health, leave of absences, and return to work issues which included items on psychological or mental stress or distress, anxiety, burnout, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, mood disorders, thoughts of suicide, and substance use or dependence. The authors analyzed a total of 1860 survey responses which incuded 1569 from women and 291 from men that had at least 90% of the questions answered. Further these survey responses included 231 people who identified as persons of color. The survey respondants included 397 dentists, 310 physicians, 202 midwives, and 1,013 nurses. The authors also conducted phone and Zoom calls with 163 professionals, with 132 women and 36 men.
The authors found that 62% of the resondents reported having any experience of mental issues during work or school. The authors do note that health professionals with mental health issues may have self selected to participate in the study. The authors found that among those who repored a mental health issue, 60% made changes to work in response, 53% contemplated taking a leave of absence, and 29% actually took a leave of absencse due to their mental heath issues. The authors found that those practicing dentistry were significantly less likely to report having suffered a mental health issue and also significantly less likely to think about taking a leave of absence. A total of 44% of the dentist respondents reported having a mental health issue, 54% of the dentist resondents reported making changes to work due to their mental health, 28% of the dentist respondents contemplated taking a leave of absence due to their mental health, and 13% of the dentist respondents actually took a leave of absence due to their mental health.
The authors also found that dentists were least likely to return to work after taking a leave of absence due to a mental health issue. Specifically 59% of dentists returned to work after taking a leave, while 79% of physicians returned, 70% of midwives returned, and 74% of nurses returned. Among dentists the top three reasons while they did not take a leave of absence included the mental health issue not being severe enough to warrant a leave, the impact of the leave on patients, and for financial reasons. Also among dentists the top two two facilitators to taking a leave of absence from work for mental health issues included coverage for patients while on leave and supportive colleagues. One dentistry respondent states:
“I think just the reluctance to talk about it [a leave of absence a mental health issue] for fear if word gets out it may affect their practice … So I think the barrier would be still the stigma surrounding this whole issue, this whole area of illness.
When discussing their findings as a whole across all four professions the authors state:
“Across professions, there is a need to destigmatize mental health issues and encourage greater awareness and support from leaders, supervisors, and colleagues recognizing that both gender and leadership matter greatly. Our findings of how this pathway differed among the health professions suggests that it will be important to study these phenomena in other health professions…”
The authors feel that since the mental health issues and experiences across the four healthcare professionals differed, further studies should be conducted including other health fields to better understand how the work context affects the experience.