Earlier this year, global healthcare communications agency, Havas Lynx Group, launched its 2023 thought leadership white paper – Healing the Healers – which looks at the mental health crisis among healthcare professionals.

Today we are witnessing the fastest deterioration of well-being in human history and HCPs are far from immune to this trend. In fact, self-reported studies suggest a greater increase in mental illness among doctors when compared with the wider population.

In recent research conducted for the Healing the Healers white paper we found ever-increasing levels of burnout, depression and even suicide across almost every type of HCP specialty. It’s ironic, that at a time of unprecedented concern for mental health and so much money being invested in well-being support, there seems to be a lack of support for those who provide us with assistance when we need it most.

And while the issue of HCP burnout may not be a new one, we are now reaching a critical crossroads where something must be done.

Our proprietary data product, Point.1, conducted research across a sample of 2,536 HCPs and it revealed, on average, nearly a quarter of HCPs experience more negative emotions at work compared to the general population, with 43% of these individuals experiencing moderate-to-severe distress and 31% moderate-to-extreme fear at work.

Supporting HCPs with their mental health is a prerequisite for a working healthcare system, advancements in medicine and optimal patient care. It is incumbent upon all of us to acknowledge the problem, minimise the causes and consequences, remove the barriers we experience to identifying solutions and ultimately champion the change and support essential for our HCPs.

One of the common misconceptions of burnout is that it is caused by simply working too long or too hard, but other factors can equally be responsible. There is not one, singular cause of this critical level of burnout, meaning there is not one, singular solution.

Research revealed that HCPs are being affected across every aspect of well-being.  Physically, physicians are feeling greater levels of stress with the burden of bureaucracy, a backlog of patients from the pandemic and inadequate workforce planning, being named as causes. Issues like outdated IT systems and restricted budgets cause daily frustration for them and are issues that most people can empathise with. However, in an industry where it can be a matter of life or death, these mere annoyances for some of us can have much deadlier consequences in healthcare.

‘Self-reported studies suggest a greater increase in mental illness among doctors when compared with the wider population’

As you can imagine, there is a great deal of emotion surrounding the subject of health and physicians are at the sharp end when it comes to emotion. Data suggests that they experience significantly more positive emotions, but also more negative ones, than the general population. Globally, 25% of HCPs feel that their hard work goes unrecognised and 37% do not believe pay and benefits reflect performance and contribution.

So, in a time when HCPs are working longer hours under more stressful circumstances, they are expected to provide healthcare at exceptional levels without sufficient compensation, and in some cases, sufficient recovery time. It’s no wonder that 42% of neurologists, 46% of oncologists and 34% of dermatologists were found to be feeling overwhelmed.

In terms of social well-being, research by Point.1 shows a multitude of factors that cause significant distress. This includes unrealistic expectations from others including patients, the media and colleagues. These expectations around what can be reasonably achieved in a healthcare system are causing strained relationships among HCPs, leading to a lack of trust and support, and exacerbating an already strained work environment.

It has been found that one of the most destructive effects of burnout is depersonalisation, which comes as a result of emotional exhaustion, and is the catalyst to a catastrophic chain reaction that jeopardises HCP well-being and patient care.

Good communication with patients is key to effective medicine and HCPs’ holistic and empathetic connections are crucial to ensuring open and trusting HCP-patient relationships. However, we found that depersonalisation due to burnout impairs communication, risks mis/late diagnosis and sometimes even has a detrimental effect on patient recovery times.

Not surprisingly, depersonalisation goes beyond HCP-to-patient relationships and has shown to affect how HCPs engage with each other from day to day. Peer-to-peer engagement is deemed a key influence when it comes to delivering a high quality, multidisciplinary approach to healthcare. However, with depersonalisation causing a breakdown in these relationships it’s risking how effectively the system can help patients.

In response to the research conducted for the Healing the Healers white paper, a UK doctor said: “I realised it was becoming harder every day to be patient and understanding with my peers, nursing colleagues and even my patients. I found I was blaming them for issues that were completely out of their control. Ultimately, I did not like the irritable and cynical person I had become, so my only choice was to the leave the profession.”

While burnout among HCPs is not a new problem, we are approaching a critical crossroad. If we do not address the issue and its multiple drivers soon, it is set to change healthcare in a way that threatens its very foundations.

So, what do we do? By acknowledging the problem, the impact on the individual and on patient care, we can kickstart the conversation that will help us to implement crucial changes across the industry.

Only by truly recognising, understanding and benchmarking the levels of burnout we’re seeing among HCPs can we determine what needs to be done.

This is not something that can be fixed by one individual or organisation it will require a purposeful course of action from all healthcare stakeholders globally, who are committed to implementing solutions, no matter what it takes. After all, if we don’t heal the healers, who will heal us?

Claire Knapp is CEO at Havas Lynx Group