Heroes Need Help Too: Supporting Nurse Mental Health

Nurses are often called the backbone of the healthcare system, providing essential care 24 hours a day. While they are vital to the mental well-being of their patients, the intense emotional and physical demands of the job often put nurses’ own mental health at significant risk. At Well Workshop Psychological Services, we believe that for a healthcare system to be healthy, we must first protect the mental health of our nurses.

Why Nurses Are Central to Mental Health

Nurses do far more than just medical tasks; they are the primary source of emotional support for patients.

  • The Therapeutic Alliance: Nurses spend more time with patients than any other discipline, allowing them to build deep trust and understand a patient’s unique triggers.

  • Empathy as Medicine: Service users report that the most "helpful encounters" with nurses involve genuine caring, empathy, and understanding, rather than just the completion of tasks.

  • A Human Connection: In environments like neonatal or hospice care, nurses act as a vital bridge between families and the medical system during the most vulnerable moments of life.

The Hidden Toll: Emotional Labour and Burnout

The very qualities that make nurses excellent, empathy and dedication, can also lead to severe mental health challenges.

  • Emotional Labour: Nurses constantly manage their own emotions to appear calm and professional, a process known as "emotional labour". Over time, "faking" positive emotions (surface acting) leads to burnout, exhaustion, and self-alienation.

  • Trauma and Stress: Nurses are at high risk for PTSD, anxiety, and depression due to chronic overwork, witnessing patient deaths, and facing hostile behaviors.

  • Institutional Betrayal: Mental health suffers when nurses feel their workplace has failed to protect them, especially during crises like the COVID-19 pandemic.

Protecting the Protectors

Improving nurse mental health requires both organizational change and individual support.

  • Psychological Safety: Nurses need environments where they feel safe to speak up about errors or distress without fear of punishment. High psychological safety is directly linked to lower burnout and higher work engagement.

  • Self-Compassion: Research shows that nurses who practice self-compassion, treating themselves with the same kindness they give patients, are more resilient and less likely to quit.

  • Moral Resilience: We must help nurses develop "moral resilience," the ability to maintain their integrity even when faced with difficult ethical dilemmas at work.

The Bottom Line: When we ignore the mental health of nurses, patient safety and the quality of care inevitably decline. Supporting our nurses isn’t just the right thing to do, it is essential for a functional healthcare system.

References

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Hobyane, A. V., Shilubane, H. N., & Rikhotso, T. N. (2025). Protocol for developing a model to promote the mental health of nurses caring for mental healthcare users at mental health institutions in Limpopo province, South Africa. PLoS ONE, 20(6), e0326360. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0326360

Lakeman, R., Foster, K., Hazelton, M., Roper, C., & Hurley, J. (2023). Helpful encounters with mental health nurses in Australia: A survey of service users and their supporters. Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing, 30(3), 515–525. https://doi.org/10.1111/jpm.12887

Liu, X., He, F., Tian, T., Zhang, J., Ji, Y., & Zhong, Y. (2025). Self-compassion and work engagement among clinical nurses: The mediating role of moral resilience. Frontiers in Public Health, 13, 1507539. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2025.1507539

Nowell, C., Mackie, S., Alves-Costa, F., & Theobald, D. (2026). The role of nurses in the implementation of positive behavior support in a secure forensic setting. Journal of Forensic Psychology Research and Practice, 26(2), 155–185. https://doi.org/10.1080/24732850.2024.2395981

Ring, M., & Hult, M. (2025). A structural equation model of the impacts of nurses’ psychological safety and psychological contract breach. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 81(3), 1323–1331. https://doi.org/10.1111/jan.16331

Tu, T., Hu, L., Yuan, Y., Li, H., Xie, A., & Guo, H. (2025). A qualitative study of the emotional labour among neonatal nurses based on the affective events theory. International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-Being, 20(1), 2489851. https://doi.org/10.1080/17482631.2025.2489851

Yu, J., Soh, K. L., He, L., Wang, P., Soh, K. G., & Cao, Y. (2023). The experiences and needs of hospice care nurses facing burnout: A scoping review. American Journal of Hospice & Palliative Medicine, 40(9), 1029–1039. https://doi.org/10.1177/10499091221141063

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