{"id":19745,"date":"2026-05-04T11:03:27","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T09:03:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/efn.eu\/?p=19745"},"modified":"2026-05-04T11:03:30","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T09:03:30","slug":"protecting-the-nurses-mental-health-moving-from-data-to-evidence-based-policy-and-frontline-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/efn.eu\/?p=19745","title":{"rendered":"Protecting the nurses\u2019 mental health: moving from data to evidence-based policy and frontline action"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The WHO Europe Mental Health of Nurses and Doctors (MeND) survey<\/a>, based on over 90,000 responses collected from the 27 EU Member States, Iceland and Norway, revealed the extent of the nursing workforce\u2019s mental health crisis : 1)<\/strong> One in three nurses report symptoms of depression or anxiety; 2)<\/strong> Three per cent report signs of probable alcohol dependence; 3)<\/strong> Nurses are five times as likely as the general population to experience symptoms of depression (32% vs 6%); 4)<\/strong> Over 10% of nurses report thoughts of ending their life or harming themselves. Worryingly, according to the MeND survey, these symptoms are directly associated with poor working conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On European Mental Health Week, therefore, EFN calls on European policymakers to translate data into concrete action. In this regard, EFN welcomes the work conducted by the KEEPCARING Project<\/a>, which brings together research institutions, clinical partners, technology developers, and end-users representatives, like EFN, to design, test, and evaluate research and evidence-based interventions that strengthen workforce resilience in hospital settings. With the WHO Europe data providing an important policy context and call for action, the KEEPCARING Project\u2019s research-backed innovative solutions therefore aim to address stress, burnout, and organisational challenges through complementary digital and non-digital approaches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within this context, EFN welcomes the upcoming EU-OSHA Healthy Workplaces Campaign<\/a> 2026-2028, which will prioritise collecting data and proposing solutions to address Psychosocial risks in the health and social care sector. Importantly, this aligns with ongoing developments in the European Parliament, including the Own-Initiative (INI) Report on the Health Workforce<\/a>, and the Own-Legislative Initiative (INL) on Psychosocial Risks<\/a>, both of which are files that are being closely followed by the EFN. Furthermore, \u00a0building on the 2023 Own-Initiative Report on the EU Mental Health Strategy<\/a>, which recognised mental health as a cross-cutting societal issue, EFN encourages the SANT Committee to take this work further by developing a dedicated Own-Initiative Report on Mental Health, as more political momentum is needed to urgently support the frontline nurses\u2019 wellbeing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To bring concrete frontline changes, the political momentum must then be translated into clear and fit-for-purpose European Commission legislative proposals. As such, building on the extensive evidence developed by WHO Europe, by the KEEPCARING Project, and by EU-OSHA, EFN is working with the relevant MEPs to develop concrete policy proposals that need to be picked up by the European Commission in the current legislative mandate, including: 1)<\/strong> EU framework legislation on Safe-Nurses Staffing Levels, as the foundation for nurses\u2019 wellbeing and resilience; 2)<\/strong> EU legislation on Psychosocial risks addressing the specific needs and risk factors of frontline nurses, including reducing administrative burdens, reducing the use of overtime and on-call work, providing on-site childcare, providing resilience training, preventing violence and harassment, and ensuring the right to disconnect from work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On European Mental Health Week, EFN therefore calls on Policymakers to avoid empty promises, and instead act concretely based on all the evidence that we have!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The WHO Europe Mental Health of Nurses and Doctors (MeND)…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":19746,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/efn.eu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-03-31-at-15.58.19.jpeg?fit=1920%2C1280&ssl=1","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/efn.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/efn.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/efn.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/efn.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/efn.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19745"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/efn.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19745\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19747,"href":"https:\/\/efn.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19745\/revisions\/19747"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/efn.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/efn.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/efn.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/efn.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}