Importance of Mental Health
Well-being is a crucial element of life. Mental health is generally described as a state of well-being that facilitates our ability to cope with everyday challenges. It helps us work productively and contributes to the well-being of others (World Health Organization, 2022). Mental health is also multifaceted, encompassing emotional well-being, cognitive functioning,
social interactions, stress resilience, sleep quality and neurological health (American Economic Association, 2023; Jiang et al., 2024). Various factors, including physiological and health factors, psychological factors, trauma, relational factors, sociodemographic factors, and lifestyle factors, can influence one’s mental health (Sheldon et al., 2021), highlighting the hallenges of maintaining a satisfactory level of mental health.
The WHO (2022) emphasises the positive impact of mental health on workplace well-being and productivity. Workplaces are social settings where diverse personalities interact to achieve their professional development goals, which are set to advance the overarching organisational goals. The limited availability of resources and time restrictions to achieve these goals make many workplaces fast-paced and often stressful.
According to Mental Health Australia (2023), four out of five healthcare workers have experienced increased workplace stress and pressure. With 78% of healthcare workers being impacted by staff shortages (Monash University, 2021), mental illness among health workers is increasing significantly (84%) (Mental Health Australia, 2023; Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care, 2022). Moreover, during the pandemic, 59.8% of Australian frontline healthcare workers experienced mild to severe anxiety, 70.9% reported moderate to severe burnout, and 57.3% suffered from mild to severe depression (Smallwood et al., 2021). The need for mental health support to maintain the psychological well-being of healthcare workers is paramount to alleviate the adverse effects of mental illnesses, creating a more productive and healthier work environment.
Mental health training, provided for employees and managers (e.g., Mental Health First Aiders), is not just a beneficial tool for organizations but a necessary one. It equips them with the knowledge and skills to empathetically understand and diagnose mental health issues early in the workplace. This article delves into the crucial role of mental health-supportive staff in the workplace, focusing on healthcare workers.
Mental Health-supportive Staff
The presence of mental health-supportive staff in a workplace is of paramount importance. These professionals are equipped to provide care and support to their peers who may suffer from mental illnesses. Left unaddressed, mental illnesses can significantly impact employee well-being, leading to stress, burnout, loneliness, depression, anxiety, lack of sleep, and poor work-life balance. Moreover, they can also hamper an organization’s productivity and overall health (McKinsey & Company, 2023).
In health care, providing mental health support for those healthcare workers is essential for two reasons. First, mental illnesses lead to adverse psychological effects such as stress, burnout and anxiety among the workers. Second, exacerbated by workforce shortages and the demanding nature of their jobs’ responsibilities, healthcare workers, if they suffer from mental illnesses, cannot provide high-quality service care for the patients (Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care, 2022).
Often, mental illnesses do not come to the surface at once. There could be subtle signs such as reservedness, withdrawal from social interactions, fatigue, and changes in the quality of work. The employees we work closely with daily are among the best people to detect some of those early signs. Therefore, employees, especially those who have the necessary knowledge and skills to empathetically diagnose mental health issues early in the workplace, can make timely support and, if necessary, interventions.
Mental health supportive staff can offer personalized support, encourage friendly conversations, listen empathetically, offer reassurance, guide the person through their immediate emotional distress and create an environment that promotes overall wellness. As concerned peers, they can be an approachable point of contact. This peer support can reduce hospital admissions, increase empowerment, and improve social functioning among staff (Repper & Carter, 2011).
Peer support can take the form of detecting early signs, making necessary interventions or providing immediate support to assist with mental illness (e.g., handling a crisis). Furthermore, in addition to providing hints and tips on self-care strategies for mental health, they can provide guidance to seek professional support (e.g., counselling, therapy or medical intervention) if necessary. Mental health supportive staff are usually treated to manage the sensitive information confidentially to ensure the help seekers feel safe and secure (Almeida et al., 2022).
Usually, employees were more comfortable discussing mental illnesses when their workplace formally addresses them (Mitravinda & Srinivasa, 2023; Andriolatou et al., 2022). Recognising the importance of mental illnesses, the workplace can set policies to support accessing mental health resources, including mental health supportive- staff services and training. This openness fosters a sense of trust and safety and promotes a nurturing culture in which employees feel more comfortable sharing their mental health issues without fear of judgment.
Mental health-supportive staff strongly signal peer support and a working environment where overall wellness is prioritized. They promote better emotional health, increase productivity, and enhance team cohesion. In the long term, this creates a resilient workforce better equipped to handle stress, maintain balance, and contribute to a positive and healthy workplace atmosphere.
Further, receiving on-the-job training provides mental health supportive staff with confidence and lived experiences of mental illness (Simpson et al., 2017). Workplaces with such staff have access to living and breathing mental health support systems customised for the workplace.
Challenges Faced by Mental Health-Supportive Staff
Being a mental health-supportive staff member may be challenging while performing the usual job functions in a workplace. In addition, mental health supportive staff may face challenges in maintaining interprofessional working relationships, tackling tensions between job roles, and requiring ongoing training and support (Hurley et al.,2020; Simpson et al., 2017). These issues are more severe in healthcare as the service is often shared among multidisciplinary and multifunctional staff. Mental health-supportive staff may find it challenging to understand the complexities of crises and how those complexities impact the teams (Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care, 2022.
A considerable amount of distress and compassion fatigue could make it uncomfortable for a mental health-supportive staff to offer the required support in the workplace. High-stress situations and heavy workloads due to the high demand for mental health supportive services with inadequate support and supervision can leave staff feeling isolated. In the healthcare industry, these issues are common in remote areas where mental health-supportive services are scarce (Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care, 2022).
Stigma, discrimination and lack of support from managers and peers could make it challenging for mental healthsupportive staff to offer their services (Almeida et al., 2022). These conditions in the healthcare industry deter new staff from entering the field (Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care, 2022). Minimising the adverse effects of these challenges requires formal support systems with mentoring support with a particular focus on the well-being of mental health-supportive staff. These challenges underscore the need for better workforce planning, training, and support systems to ensure that mental health-supportive staff can effectively meet the demands of mental health services.
To resolve some challenges, workplaces can regularly circulate information about available mental health services with confidential access (Almeida et al., 2022). Key decision makers, such as managers, should support staff who access services and would like to receive necessary training, which should be continuously available (Hurley et al., 2020).
Mental health-supportive staff should also be prepared to understand that there could be conflicting mental illness diagnoses and use these discrepancies to improve mental health assessments instead of measurement errors (De Los Reyes et al., 2023). Further, they should be prepared to adopt
multi-informant approaches where necessary, followed by reporting the validity and reliability of the approaches.
Future Directions in Mental Health in Health Care
There is great potential in using metaverse technology in managing mental illnesses among healthcare workers. They can be offered with remote consultations and patient care by offering immersive experiences (exposure therapy) and realtime medical data analysis, surgical simulations, and mental health therapies facilitated by technologies like Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), and Artificial Intelligence (AI) (Ullah et al., 2023). Mental Health Supportive Staff can be provided with necessary training using VR and AR applications and pre-operative counselling.
Challenges include data privacy concerns, interoperability of devices, legal issues, and the need for robust security measures to protect sensitive medical data. Therefore, further research should address technical, legal, and ethical challenges before the widespread adoption of some of the above in
healthcare (Ullah et al., 2023).
Conclusion
In conclusion, mental health-supportive services play a crucial role in healthcare. They provide continuous support for healthcare workers, which enhances their ability to deliver high-quality patient care. With due measures to protect data privacy, advanced technologies such as the metaverse and other tools could make mental health services widely available and
accessible by healthcare workers, especially those in remote areas, who can contribute to a more effective and compassionate healthcare environment. The key takeaway is that investing in mental health support for healthcare workers is beneficial to the workers and essential for the patients and the sustainability of the healthcare system. Therefore, the healthcare sector should prioritise mental health training and support systems.
Pull Quote:
“Mental illnesses often show subtle signs like reservedness, social withdrawal, fatigue, and work quality changes. Colleagues with the right skills can detect these early and provide timely support and interventions”