Nursing, UC San Diego Health

Objective: To describe the pilot expansion of a proactive suicide risk-screening program, initially designed for physicians, to nurses.

Background: The Healer Education, Assessment and Referral (HEAR) program detects at-risk physicians and facilitates referral to mental health care. Nothing similar has been available for at-risk nurses. Local nurse suicides served as the catalyst to extend the HEAR program to nurses.

Method: Education, outreach and an encrypted, online, anonymous, proactive risk screening were conducted to identify and refer nurses with depression and suicide risk.

Results: During the first 6 months of the program, 172 (7%) of 2475 nurses completed questionnaires; 74 (43%) were rated as high risk and another 98 (55%) as moderate risk; 12 (7%) reported current active thoughts or actions of self-harm and 19 (11%) reported previous suicide attempts. Forty-four (26%) received in-person or verbal counseling and 17 accepted referral for continued treatment.

Conclusions: An encrypted, anonymous, proactive risk screening is effective at identifying nurses at risk and referring them to mental health care.