It’s hard to believe it’s already been three years since the COVID-19 pandemic turned our world completely upside down. At the time, many people reported suffering from record levels of stress and anxiety. More than a year into the pandemic, the American Psychological Association surveyed 3,035 U.S. adults in August, 2021 and discovered nearly a third were so stressed out that they struggled to make basic decisions.
“More than three in five (63%) agreed that uncertainty about what the next few months will be like causes them stress, and around half (49%) said that the coronavirus pandemic has made planning for their future feel impossible,” according to the American Psychological Association’s report on its survey.
But the pandemic started over three years ago and is no longer considered a global health emergency. Our stress levels should have subsided by now, right? Apparently not.
If you’re an AdvancedMD customer you may have recently taken a survey we posted on the AdvancedMD user dashboard, asking about mental health issues. We wanted to know if the physician practices we serve have seen an increase in patient stress levels. We also wanted to check in on our customers and ask about their mental health as well. Here’s what we learned.
AdvancedMD Mental Health Survey Results
84% of healthcare providers report they have seen an increase in patient stress levels and mental health issues in the past three years.
65% of healthcare providers say their work-related stress issues have increased since 2020.
40% of healthcare providers say daily responsibilities have the biggest impact on their work-related stress.
44% of healthcare providers exercise to help manage stress.
The survey findings revealed many professionals in the healthcare field may not be practicing what they preach—only 15% of the survey participants listed behavioral health therapy when asked about their preferred activity for managing stress.
The first step to addressing mental health issues is being able to talk about your stress: what’s causing it, how it affects your life, and all the ways it manifests during the day. By discussing stress and mental health issues, we help bring a very real healthcare problem out of the dark and into the light. It’s the reason we conducted this survey.
Staffing shortages combined with increased patient volumes mean many healthcare providers are forced to manage unsustainable workloads with a never-ending list of daily responsibilities. This perfect storm of too many work tasks only fuels the ongoing challenges plaguing the healthcare space: stressed out healthcare professionals with too much to do end up leaving their jobs, driving staffing shortages that keep much of the healthcare industry feeling as if they are forever stuck in a never-ending task cycle.
It’s important we talk about our stress and mental health issues. It’s also important that we use technology to improve our workflow processes and increase our productivity. AdvancedMD is designed to automate time-consuming tasks so that healthcare providers can focus on patient outcomes. If you’re an AdvancedMD customer, be sure to let us know how we can help you optimize your EHR, practice management, and patient engagement solutions to make your workday as productive as possible.
If you’re not using AdvancedMD yet, give us a call and let us show you how we can reduce your work-related stress levels.