Abstract
[This is an excerpt.] Many healthcare workers who seek help receive effective and potentially lifesaving mental health care. This care may come in the form of peer support, counseling, therapy, medication or a myriad of other modalities that help people process difficult experiences, build skills, create community or manage a mental health condition. When clinicians are afraid to seek mental health care, they can suffer and so can the people around them, including patients and team members. Barriers to mental health care for clinicians, whether cultural or structural, can have widespread implications that affect cultures of safety, quality of care, staff retention, system resilience and more. With this research, the Heart of Safety Coalition, in collaboration with the Dr. Lorna Breen Heroes’ Foundation and its ALL IN: Wellbeing First for Healthcare Coalition, set out to gain a deeper understanding of the structural and cultural barriers that physicians, nurses, nurse practitioners and physician assistants face when accessing mental health care. The research also explores clinician perspectives on some promising approaches to removing or lessening those barriers. It is our shared belief that healthcare workers need and deserve workplaces that support the three pillars of safety: psychological and emotional safety, dignity and inclusion, and physical safety. Our survey was fielded through Medscape’s clinician panel from Jan. 30, 2025 through February 12, 2025. Our sample included 765 registered nurses (RNs), 750 physicians (MDs/DOs), 251 physician assistants (PAs) and 250 nurse practitioners (NPs) with a response rate of 36% and an incidence rate of 93%. For this research, we chose to use the language “mental health care” and did not use explicit language about specific type of condition treated, such as substance use disorders, mood disorders or others. [To read more, click View Resource.]
