Recently I talked with a pharmacist friend I have known for over 15 years. I asked him to explain the kind of pressures he deals with that most of the general public might not be particularly aware of.

He smirked and giggled a bit, but then paused to think about the question.

“Most people don’t know how isolated and continuously busy we are,” he began. “It never stops and we have to be on top of our game. If we were to make an error, it could have terrible consequences.”

“It is not that infrequent for someone to walk up to our counter. They just cannot afford a particular medication and will unleash their misguided anger on a pharmacy tech,” he continued. “A patient who is confused will do the same. We need to be on high alert because we’re responsible for dispensing pharmaceutical prescriptions on a daily basis. There are such interruptions.”

“It’s a constant pressure to be very accurate and helpful. It’s like a conveyor belt constantly bringing new and unexpected challenges with an array of issues.”

“I don’t like the term, ‘Big Pharma,’ because it reflects negatively on us, but I can understand why. There are too many games played out there in the industry based on selling and profit.”

He looked me in the face with sincerity and noted that “the bottom line is, I became a pharmacist to help people with their health issues, but this business has many issues beyond health.”

Suicide rates among pharmacists in the United States are nearly double those of the general population. This underscores the broader mental health challenges facing health care professionals.

The 2024 National Pharmacist Workforce Study by the Pharmacy Workforce Center highlights unique pressures within the industry.

• 73% of full-time pharmacists rated their workload as “high” or “excessively high.”

• 91% of these responses came from pharmacists employed by chain or mass merchandiser pharmacies.

Suicide remains the eleventh leading cause of death in the United States, claiming more than 49,000 lives each year. Members of the pharmacy workforce are not immune, facing unique pressures that take a toll on their mental health.

Healthcare workers, in general, face elevated rates of burnout, depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and suicide.

Being a pharmacist often results in working long hours, getting inadequate sleep, and high levels of stress.

One major error in dosing the medication they provide can result in job loss. They need to make sure that they follow proper protocol and are essentially perfect in the dispensing of medications.

The perfectionist nature of this job results in further stress upon the pharmacist. Additionally, some pharmacists are required to work shift hours at 24-hour pharmacies. This schedule is well-established to be detrimental to a person’s mental health.

They are responsible for informing patients of medication side effects and dealing with collecting payments for certain medications.

Also considering the fact that a pharmacist has easy access to drugs and a general knowledge of dosing and pharmacology, it makes suicide via overdose a more common option.

One might assume pharmaceuticals is the primary way pharmacists commit suicide. Actually, firearms are the primary way followed by drugs and hanging.

Although it is not entirely clear which specific medications are associated with higher levels of suicide-related behavior, real-world data from the FDA adverse event reporting system database have been analyzed to identify medications correlated with suicidal ideation or self-injurious.

The top five medications related to suicidal ideation or self-injurious were alprazolam, zolpidem, amphetamine, quetiapine, and fluoxetine. Further analysis showed that suicide-related adverse events were more frequently reported in females.

Antiepileptics had the highest frequency of reported adverse events in the 51–55 year age group, compared to 16–20 years for antidepressants and 46–50 years for sedative-hypnotics.

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