While the COVID pandemic put the spotlight on the issue of mental health and burnout among doctors and nurses, less was known about the mental health of pharmacists. Results of a longitudinal study published in the Journal of the American Pharmacists Association reveal a suicide rate among pharmacists nearly twice that of the general population.
The figures are based on data from 2003 through 2018, show a suicide rate of 20 per 100 000 pharmacists compared to 12 per 100 000 in the general population. Study authors expect numbers to be even higher in subsequent years due to the additional stressors of the pandemic, and are currently evaluating more recent data.
“If we learned anything from the pandemic, it’s that there is a breaking point for health professionals,” said corresponding author Kelly C. Lee, PharmD, professor at UC San Diego.
The study identified the most common means of suicide in this population, with 49.8% of cases involving firearms, 29.4% involving poisoning and 13% involving suffocation. The use of firearms was similar between pharmacists and the general population, but poisoning via benzodiazepines, antidepressants and opioids was more frequent among pharmacists.
The data also provide some insight into contributing factors, including a history of mental illness and a high prevalence of job problems. Job problems are the most common feature of suicides across health care professions.
For pharmacists, Lee said job problems reflect significant changes in the industry in recent years, with more pharmacists being employed by hospitals and chain retailers as opposed to the small, private pharmacies more common in the past. Pharmacist responsibilities have also grown considerably, with larger volumes of pharmaceuticals to dispense and increasing demands to administer vaccines and other health care services.
“Pharmacists have many more responsibilities now, but are expected to do them with the same resources and compensation they had 20 years ago,” said Prof Lee. “And with strict monitoring from state and federal regulatory boards, pharmacists are expected to perform in a fast-paced environment with perfect accuracy. It’s difficult for any human to keep up with that pressure.”
Future research will further evaluate which job problems have the biggest impact and how the field can better respond. In the meantime, Prof Lee advised pharmacists to encourage help-seeking behaviours amongst themselves and their colleagues.
“Mental health is still highly stigmatised, and often even more so among health professionals,” said Prof Lee. “Even though we should know better, there is such an expectation to appear strong, capable and reliable in our roles that we struggle to admit any vulnerabilities. It’s time to take a look at what our jobs are doing to us and how we can better support each other, or we are going to lose our best pharmacists.”
