Organisational professional support measures to enhance mental health and wellbeing in female healthcare workers: an umbrella review.

Publication date: Sep 15, 2025

This study aims to synthesise evidence on organisational professional support measures that enhance female healthcare workers’ mental health and wellbeing. Female healthcare workers face high rates of mental health challenges, impacting their ability to provide optimal care. This umbrella review adhered to the nine-step pathway to conducting umbrella reviews by Cant et al. (2022) and reported following the Preferred Reporting Items for Overview of Reviews checklist (Pollock, 2019). A search of Embase, Medline, CINAHL via EBSCO and the Cochrane Library for English language papers from January 2011 onwards was conducted (search date: February 2024). Following an identification of relevant papers and data extraction, themes were developed using a narrative synthesis approach. In total, 32 systematic reviews met the inclusion criteria. From the data synthesis, four themes were developed, namely lack of studies specific to female healthcare workers, diversity and variability of interventions, interventions best related to staff outcomes versus organisational outcomes and social connections at work can be supportive or stressful. Evidence supports that person-directed interventions including cognitive-behavioural therapy and relaxation measures may enhance staff-level outcomes. In contrast, organisation-directed interventions such as clinical supervision and mentoring, or a combination of person- and organisation-centred interventions, appear to enhance both staff and organisational outcomes. Limitations in existing studies highlight the need for improved research conduct and reporting.

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