Interventions such as formal support systems are needed for Australia’s exhausted, overwhelmed mental health nurses.

Imagine seeking urgent help during an acute mental health crisis event and expecting calm, capable support. You enter the hospital and notice that the mental health nurses, normally a source of strength, appear to be under significant stress themselves. They are exhausted, overwhelmed and struggling with their own mental well-being.

Is this the future we want? Or is it, in some ways, already here?

Mental health nurses are the backbone of Australia’s healthcare system. But they are buckling under system-level pressures:  inadequate staffing ratios, ensuring the right level of experience and expertise, rising workloads and casual employment.

Despite their importance, mental health nurses face unique occupational  challenges including high  emotional demands, frequent exposure to workplace violence and harassment from clients.

The toll is highest where the risk is highest: Australian data shows that healthcare workers, especially those in mental health settings, experience high rates of work-related violence and traumatic exposure, with many encountering threats or assault from clients in the course of care.

Such demands lead to high levels of stress and a high risk of burnout. The impact is two-fold: not only does it compromise the well-being of the nurses themselves, but it also affects their capacity to provide quality care.

This crisis has come at a time of severe workforce  shortages, when every nurse is desperately needed.  Victoria has recognised the importance of specialist mental health qualifications and is offering full-fee scholarships for nurses to complete postgraduate studies, and build skills, knowledge and capability to support safe care and safer work.

Social support is crucial

Unlike other roles among mental healthcare staff, nurses provide 24/7 frontline care for clients with acute mental health disorders. This constant demand can lead to high stress and burnout, making social support essential.

Social support encourages emotional  resilience and provides practical assistance, helping them deliver compassionate care and maintain a sense of belonging in a challenging work environment.

Through interview-based surveys, RMIT University researchers  studied the experiences of mental health nurses in Australia. Their words paint a grim picture: formal social support is scarce, and a culture of self-reliance dominates. Instead of structured organisational support, nurses lean on each other.

Besides, mental health nurses also face barriers, including limited formal opportunities, places or time to gain support. One nurse explained that “it’s very hard to practically get away and you know, unless you do it in your own time”.

Another nurse echoed the challenge of immediacy: “It’s just hard for on the ground nurses who are doing a very, you know, job that requires you to be there.”

Describing a typical day in her profession, a senior mental health nurse recalled being assaulted by a distressed client during an interaction after having spent hours calming them.

The ordeal doesn’t really end there. A staff member managing an assault from one client is likely to be responsible for several others, which may be equally complex and demanding.

Without the availability of immediate peer support and protected debrief time — especially if the staff member is an early career mental health nurse — the psychological load snowballs.

For many mental health nurses then, social support is not a professional add-on. It is a matter of survival. “It’s essential, but I think it is actually inherent to what we do. We need to have that because if you don’t, then the workplace that you’re in becomes incredibly toxic and incredibly difficult to actually function in,” one nurse explained_._ 

The necessity of support is something the nurses are taught early on. As one nurse, also an educator, put it: “It’s something I teach my students…if you cannot survive the industry, you’ll need a therapist.” This statement underpins how crucial social support is for mental health nurses and how much it functions as a survival mechanism.

Even though formal support services are available and promoted by leadership, mental health nurses often hesitate to use them and express disappointment in leaders, particularly due to a perceived lack of value placed on social support. Instead, they take matters into their own hands. “No matter how difficult it got, you just knew everyone had each other’s back […] And you’re going to get through it together.”

A multifaceted approach

While informal peer support that offers immediate emotional relief and shared understanding is invaluable, it has its limitations. It is often reactive, and places the responsibility for building and maintaining support networks on the individuals rather than the organisations.

A stronger, system-level response is possible. Organisations should provide proactive interventions such as regular debriefing sessions and targeted strategies to manage systemic issues, including staffing ratios, safe skill-mix, meaning the right combination of skills and expertise across each shift, together with workload management and workplace safety.

Existing formal support, including clinical supervision and  Employee Assistance Programs, also need strengthening. These services should be more flexible and accessible to overcome scheduling barriers, whilst ensuring they remain of high quality.

With the rise of AI-assisted technologies, organisations should also explore how technology can be integrated as an additional source of social support. Early  evidence suggests chatbot-based interventions can help to reduce stress and anxiety for health professionals, but they should complement, and not replace, human and organisational support.

Organisations need to take a multifaceted approach, combining the strengths of informal networks with the structure of formal support services and the foundations of safe staffing and skills to address their current crises. By doing so, we reduce burnout and turnover, protect care quality and retain highly skilled mental health nurses in their crucial roles. If we fail to act, we entrench risk for mental health nurses and for the people they care for.

Originally published under  _Creative Commons_ by  _360info__. 1 October 2025_

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.