Roadmaps of Mental Health

Smith, Kenneth; Hands, Catherine

doi:10.4324/9781003268185-9

Cited by 3 publications

(4 citation statements)

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Section: Where Are We On Mental Health Now?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There have been a few studies mainly for graduate students and postdocs in university settings (not specific to Heliophysics) to evaluate mental health status, prevalence of mental health issues, and interventions and their respective effectiveness [e.g., [2][3][4][5][6]. Some of these studies were conducted within specific institutions [2,3]. For example, a 2015 University of Arizona report [2] found that the majority of doctoral students experience "more than average" or "tremendous" stress and recognized school and education-related issues as the largest contributors to their stress.…”

Section: Where Are We On Mental Health Now?mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Raising Awareness on Mental Health in the Heliophysics Community

Nikoukar,

Regoli,

Halford

et al. 2023

Bulletin of the AAS

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Section: Where Are We On Mental Health Now?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Where Are We On Mental Health Now?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Raising Awareness on Mental Health in the Heliophysics Community

Nikoukar,

Regoli,

Halford

et al. 2023

Bulletin of the AAS

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“…A comprehensive study with more than 2000 participants (90% Ph.D. students, 10% Master students) from over 200 institutions across different countries showed that graduate students were more than six times more likely to experience symptoms of depression and anxiety than the general public [ 2 ]. Furthermore, a global-scale meta-analysis [ 3 ] and several other studies concerned with the mental health of Ph.D. students in different countries, e.g., the United States [ 7 , 9 ], the United Kingdom [ 6 ], France [ 15 ], Poland [ 8 ], Belgium [ 16 ] or Germany [ 11 , 12 ] voice concerns about the mental health situation of Ph.D. students. Recent research conducted in Belgium has consistently found a higher prevalence of mental health problems among Ph.D. students compared to different groups of other highly educated individuals [ 16 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“How is your thesis going?”–Ph.D. students’ perspectives on mental health and stress in academia

et al. 2023

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Mental health issues among Ph.D. students are prevalent and on the rise, with multiple studies showing that Ph.D. students are more likely to experience symptoms of mental health-related issues than the general population. However, the data is still sparse. This study aims to investigate the mental health of 589 Ph.D. students at a public university in Germany using a mixed quantitative and qualitative approach. We administered a web-based self-report questionnaire to gather data on the mental health status, investigated mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety, and potential areas for improvement of the mental health and well-being of Ph.D. students. Our results revealed that one-third of the participants were above the cut-off for depression and that factors such as perceived stress and self-doubt were prominent predictors of the mental health status of Ph.D. students. Additionally, we found job insecurity and low job satisfaction to be predictors of stress and anxiety. Many participants in our study reported working more than full-time while being employed part-time. Importantly, deficient supervision was found to have a negative effect on Ph.D. students’ mental health. The study’s results are in line with those of earlier investigations of mental health in academia, which likewise reveal significant levels of depression and anxiety among Ph.D. students. Overall, the findings provide a greater knowledge of the underlying reasons and potential interventions required for advancing the mental health problems experienced by Ph.D. students. The results of this research can guide the development of effective strategies to support the mental health of Ph.D. students.

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“…At the same time, reports of high rates of anxiety and depression in graduate students have sparked a growing interest in student mental health. Reports from the University of California Berkeley [12] and the University of Arizona [13] that nearly half of graduate students in the biomedical sciences were depressed or reported higher than average stress levels prompted calls for reform [14][15][16]. Subsequent, more extensive surveys have reported levels of depression and/or anxiety in PhD students that are 1.5 to 6 times that of comparable populations [16][17][18], with estimated prevalence rates generated through meta-analyses ranging from 17 to 35% [19,20].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Experience of irreproducibility as a risk factor for poor mental health in biomedical science doctoral students: A survey and interview-based study

Lubega,

Anderson,

Nelson

2023

PLoS ONE

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High rates of irreproducibility and of poor mental health in graduate students have been reported in the biomedical sciences in the past ten years, but to date, little research has investigated whether these two trends interact. In this study, we ask whether the experience of failing to replicate an expected finding impacts graduate students’ mental health. Using an online survey paired with semi-structured qualitative interviews, we examined how often biomedical science doctoral students at a large American public university experienced events that could be interpreted as failures to replicate and how they responded to these experiences. We found that almost all participants had experience with irreproducibility: 84% had failed to replicate their own results, 70% had failed to replicate a colleague’s finding, and 58% had failed to replicate a result from the published literature. Participants reported feelings of self-doubt, frustration, and depression while experiencing irreproducibility, and in 24% of cases, these emotional responses were strong enough to interfere with participants’ eating, sleeping, or ability to work. A majority (82%) of participants initially believed that the anomalous results could be attributed to their own error. However, after further experimentation, most participants concluded that the original result was wrong (38%), that there was a key difference between the original experiment and their own (17%), or that there was a problem with the protocol (17%). These results suggest that biomedical science graduate students may be biased towards initially interpreting failures to replicate as indicative of a lack of skill, which may trigger or perpetuate feelings of anxiety, depression, or impostorism.

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Roadmaps of Mental Health

Cited by 3 publications

References 0 publications

Raising Awareness on Mental Health in the Heliophysics Community

Raising Awareness on Mental Health in the Heliophysics Community

“How is your thesis going?”–Ph.D. students’ perspectives on mental health and stress in academia

Experience of irreproducibility as a risk factor for poor mental health in biomedical science doctoral students: A survey and interview-based study

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