Like other states, Nebraska faces a critical shortage of mental health practitioners. That shortage that may limit some communities’ access to mental health care.
Shortages in rural areas are sometimes due to practitioners seeking larger communities in which to practice, but other causes statewide include burnout and work-related stress — common challenges among those in health care professions.
Mental health practitioners are leaving Nebraska, and money may be part of the reason.
Mun Yuk Chin, assistant professor of counseling psychology and a CYFS research affiliate, recently explored how those stressors — especially personal finances — impact practitioners’ work satisfaction and personal mental health.
Funded by a Layman Award from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s Office and Research and Innovation, Chin and her team interviewed 14 licensed mental health practitioners and therapists in Nebraska who said they were experiencing financial uncertainty.
Researchers worked to better understand how financial stress develops and how it affects practitioners’ work satisfaction and personal well-being.
Practitioners outlined barriers to gathering accurate information about the financial demands of navigating their careers in the mental health profession. Concerns included navigating managed care systems, such as insurance; the cost of starting a practice of their own; and potentially being underpaid.
Those concerns influenced practitioners’ decisions involving client care, and financial stress also impacted their well-being.
“There tends to be undervaluation of mental health services when you look at how practitioners in certain settings are compensated for their work,” said Chin, who is a licensed psychologist. “Those in a health service profession care deeply about helping people and want to serve the public. But we sometimes neglect to talk about what it means to sustain those who do the work. Money is a part of that.”
Chin said her findings may indicate a need to expand curricula to include more financial education for aspiring mental health practitioners and advocacy for equitable compensation for practitioners.
“This could potentially be a gap in the training of mental health practitioners,” she said. “I think there is room to think about how to prepare practitioners for the financial realities of pursuing their careers, such as student loans and working in managed health care systems.”
Learn more about this project in the CYFS Research Network.