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It’s not just empty office spaces and long Covid-19: Another persistent effect of the pandemic is a struggling healthcare workforce.
Healthcare workers are still reporting high rates of clinical depression and burnout—even as hospitals are no longer operating in an emergency state—and those mental health issues can undercut the industry’s workforce as a whole, according to new data from healthcare talent marketplace Vivian Health.
Through a survey Vivian Health conducted online between December 2023 and this month, nearly half (46%) of 863 respondents experienced clinical depression in 2023, though the severity of the disorder was divided along generational lines. About three in five (59%) millennial workers and 56% of Gen Z workers reported having experienced the condition, while 37% of baby boomers reported having had clinical depression.
Overall, 29% of respondents said they saw a mental health professional in the 12 months prior to taking the survey.
Burnout rates reported in the survey seem consistent with national data, with 39% of respondents saying their condition worsened in 2023 from the previous year. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 45.6% of healthcare workers reported “often” or “very often” experiencing burnout in 2022, down from 31.9% in 2018.
A 2023 study demonstrated a relationship between burnout and wanting to quit a job. Thus, high rates of burnout may signal further shrinkage of a workforce already in short supply.
“Caretakers are the beating heart of the healthcare industry,” Rachel Neill, clinical advisor to Vivian Health and a former pediatric intensive care unit nurse, said in a statement. “We simply can’t afford to have talented people dropping out of the workforce because of the burnout crisis.”