Mental health concerns and barriers to care among future clinical psychologists

Abstract

Few studies have examined the mental health of clinical psychology doctoral students, a unique group given their education and training in psychopathology, assessment, and intervention. Students (N = 912) completed an online survey assessing demographics, mental health, mental healthcare utilization, and barriers to care during graduate school. Nearly 25% of participants reported moderate to severe symptoms of anxiety, 20% reported moderate to severe symptoms of depression or suicidal intent (SI), and more than 10% reported a high risk of alcohol abuse or moderate to severe drug use during graduate school. In comparison to peers, ethnic minority and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) participants reported more symptoms of depression and SI. LGBTQ+ participants reported more nonsuicidal self-injury and drug use. Participants also experienced significant barriers to receiving mental healthcare (e.g., financial difficulties, limited availability, insufficient time). Leadership is encouraged to prioritize the mental health of clinical psychology doctoral students, which may have implications on their service provision.

Only Human: Mental-Health Difficulties Among Clinical, Counseling, and School Psychology Faculty and Trainees

“…To date, this is the largest and most comprehensive assessment of mental health difficulties among applied psychology faculty and trainees, both with respect to sample size and types of difficulties assessed. Our study also employed a systematic recruitment approach, in contrast to more commonly used referral or snowball sampling methods (e.g., Hobaica et al, 2021), used advertisements designed to avoid biasing responses in favor of those with histories of mental health difficulties, and made efforts to help encourage honest and open reporting of these phenomena (e.g., ensuring participant anonymity).…”

Characterizing changes in mental health‐related outcomes for health service psychology graduate students during the first year of the COVID‐19 pandemic

“…Further, there is some evidence to suggest that the emotional burden of the COVID‐19 pandemic was more severe for students compared to the general population (Duong et al, 2020). Given that HSP graduate students have been shown to have high levels of self‐reported stress, suicidal ideation, and burnout even before the COVID‐19 pandemic (e.g., Hobaica et al, 2021; Richardson et al, 2020) and students appear to be at unique risk for COVID‐19‐related stressors, our findings suggest that the pandemic may have exacerbated a pre‐existing risk for psychological difficulties among HSP graduate students during their training, and this risk may have compounded overtime for some students (i.e., over half of the HSP graduate students included in this sample experienced increasingly worsening mental health symptoms across the first year of the COVID‐19 pandemic).…”

“…Even before the COVID‐19 pandemic, graduate students were 10 times more likely to report symptoms of anxiety, six times more likely to report symptoms of depression, and three times more likely to endorse suicidal ideation than the general population (Borges et al, 2010 ; Evans et al, 2018 ; Garcia‐Williams et al, 2014 ; Kocalevent et al, 2013 ; Löwe et al, 2008 ). Specifically, health service psychology (HSP) graduate students disproportionally experienced moderate to severe mental health symptoms, including anxiety (23%) and depression (17%), as well as hazardous alcohol use (10%), suicidal ideation (16%), plans to attempt suicide (4%), and actual suicide attempts during graduate school (0.6%; Hobaica et al, 2021 ) before COVID‐19. Given that the COVID‐19 pandemic has increased risk for mental illness by exacerbating numerous risk factors (e.g., social isolation; uncertainty, Carleton et al, 2012 ; financial instability; Hudson, 2005 ), HSP graduate students' elevated pre‐COVID risk is especially concerning.…”

“…Indeed, 40% of psychology interns and postdoctoral fellows endorsed clinically significant anxiety symptoms and 25% reported clinically significant depressive symptoms within the first 2 months of the then‐apparent US outbreak (Schneider et al, 2021 ), and these symptoms were most prominent among those who were expected to provide clinical care on‐site versus remotely. Despite the likelihood of increased risk, HSP graduate students may be less able to confidentially establish care with a therapist given that HSP graduate students often have professional conflicts with many of the providers in their schools or community (Hobaica et al, 2021 ). Taken together, there is ample reason to be concerned for the mental health of HSP graduate students in response to the COVID‐19 pandemic.…”

Stress, anxiety, and depression in psychology graduate student trainees and licensed psychologists: A scoping review.

“…A consistent theme throughout all studies was lack of affordability of mental health services (El-Ghoroury et al, 2012;Hobaica et al, 2021;Klein et al, 2022). This is further complicated by 67% of GSTs reporting that their practicum student colleagues providing mental health treatment at their university counseling centers deterred them from seeking mental health treatment at these agencies (Hobaica et al, 2021). The second most cited treatment barrier was lack of time for mental health treatment (El-Ghoroury et al, 2012;Hobaica et al, 2021).…”