Nurses were at high risk of suicide before the COVID-19 pandemic: Is the worst still to come?

Reports of high suicide rates for health professionals such as first responders (firefighters, paramedics for example) and medical physicians are commonly highlighted in the media while disturbingly high suicide rates in nurses, seem to go unrecognized. Previous studies have clearly identified the rates of suicide in nurses (Basu et al., 2023; Davis et al., 2021; Petrie et al., 2023) that are alarmingly high when compared to the general population. Why then has this serious issue gone relatively unnoticed? The Australian College of Nursing in Australia (ACN), one of our leading professional bodies, identified this very concerning issue in 2016 as an urgent concern and called for action to reduce further loss of life (Australian College of Nursing (ACN), 2016). Unfortunately, this call for action has fallen on deaf ears as the deaths by suicide of nurses in Australia have continued even after the call for action. We cannot afford to continue to ignore the national and international evidence that signifies the seriousness of the issue for nursing and health service delivery across the globe.