Healio (8/8, Bascom) reports, “Healthcare support workers, social or behavioral health workers and registered nurses were at an increased risk for death by drug overdose compared with non-healthcare workers,” investigators concluded in a study “based on data from a nationally representative cohort from the 2008 American Community Survey including 176,000 healthcare workers and 1,662,000 non-healthcare workers aged 26 years or older who were followed through 2019.” The findings were published online Aug. 8 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
HealthDay (8/8, Murez) quotes Smita Das, MD, PhD, MPH, chair of the American Psychiatric Association’s Council on Addiction Psychiatry, who said, “Healthcare workers are often subject to incredible amounts of stress.” Dr. Das, who had no involvement in the study, added, “Early on this has to do with rigorous training and costs of that training, and later it has to do with job responsibilities.” Dr. Das also “said the analysis sheds light on an important topic – the health of those who look out for other people’s health.”
Related Links:
— “Three groups of health care workers face an increased risk for death from drug overdoses,”Emma Bascom, Healio , August 8, 2023