The effect of research and teaching on depression in life sciences Ph.D. students

Abstract

Graduate students are more than six times as likely to experience depression compared to the general population and this growing problem has been declared a “graduate student mental health crisis.” Calls to identify what factors exacerbate student depression in graduate school followed. However, few studies have examined how graduate school specifically affects depression in Ph.D. students. In this qualitative interview study of 50 Ph.D. students with depression enrolled in 28 different life sciences graduate programs across the United States, we examined how research and teaching affect depression in Ph.D. students. Using inductive coding, we identified that experiencing failure, a lack of structure in research, and inadequate research mentorship were the primary aspects of graduate research negatively affecting graduate student depression. Conversely, teaching tended to have a positive effect on graduate student depression. Teaching provided positive reinforcement through positive interactions with undergraduates. Particularly, graduate students found that receiving positive feedback from students in their courses and watching students grow academically enforced positive perceptions of themselves as instructors, which protected against some depressive symptoms. This is the first study to examine how common aspects of graduate school affect depression in Ph.D. students. This work pinpoints specific aspects of Ph.D. programs, including creating structured research plans, creating opportunities for teaching, and providing frequent mentoring, that may improve mental health within the life sciences graduate student population.

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