The DOI matches its Crossref record; 75 of the 80 references it cites were found in a registry or an index; 4 of the 65 sources its claims cite were checked for support.
Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students
Open accessPublished version of a preprint
Abstract
Research policy observers are increasingly concerned about the potential impact of current academic working conditions on mental health, particularly in PhD students. The aim of the current study is threefold. First, we assess the prevalence of mental health problems in a representative sample of PhD students in Flanders, Belgium (N = 3659). Second, we compare PhD students to three other samples: (1) highly educated in the general population (N = 769); (2) highly educated employees (N = 592); and (3) higher education students (N = 333). Third, we assess those organizational factors relating to the role of PhD students that predict mental health status. Results based on 12 mental health symptoms (GHQ-12) showed that 32% of PhD students are at risk of having or developing a common psychiatric disorder, especially depression. This estimate was significantly higher than those obtained in the comparison groups. Organizational policies were significantly associated with the prevalence of mental health problems. Especially work-family interface, job demands and job control, the supervisor’s leadership style, team decision-making culture, and perception of a career outside academia are linked to mental health problems.
Overview
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Written from the paper’s full text.
TL;DR
In a representative Flemish sample of 3,659 PhD students, 32% screened at GHQ4+ for risk of a common psychiatric disorder, and 51% reported at least two GHQ-12 symptoms. Mental health problems were more prevalent than in three comparison groups and were linked to work-family conflict, job demands and control, supervisor leadership, team decision-making, and career perceptions.
Key findings
- Prevalence among PhD students was 51% for GHQ2+, 40% for GHQ3+, and 32% for GHQ4+. The most common symptoms included constant strain, unhappiness/depression, sleep loss from worry, difficulty overcoming problems, and reduced enjoyment of daily activities.
- Compared with the highly educated general population, PhD students had adjusted risk ratios of 1.90 for GHQ2+, 2.26 for GHQ3+, and 2.43 for GHQ4+. Compared with highly educated employees, the corresponding ratios were 2.02, 2.56, and 2.84; compared with higher education students, they were 1.53, 1.63, and 1.85.
- Work-family conflict was the strongest predictor in relative-weight terms (34.1% for GHQ2+ and 29.8% for GHQ4+). Job demands had ORs of 1.896 for GHQ2+ and 1.651 for GHQ4+; job control had ORs of 0.784 and 0.631; family-work conflict had ORs of 1.206 and 1.296; work-family conflict had ORs of 1.521 and 1.522.
- Inspirational supervisor leadership was associated with lower odds (OR 0.868 for GHQ2+, 0.908 for GHQ4+), laissez-faire leadership with higher distress odds (OR 1.084 for GHQ2+), and closed team decision-making with higher GHQ4+ odds (OR 1.205). No discipline differences were found; executing-phase students had lower odds than initiating-phase students, and positive career perceptions inside or outside academia were associated with better mental health.
Methods
- Cross-sectional 2013 web survey of junior researchers at all Flemish universities; the analytic sample was 3,659 PhD students from a total population of 12,191, with a 33% response rate. Selective non-response analyses showed slightly more women, younger respondents, social scientists, and Belgians than in the total population.
- Comparison groups came from Belgian Health Interview Surveys: highly educated general population (N = 769), highly educated employees (N = 592), and higher education students (N = 333, pooled across 2001, 2004, 2008, and 2013).
- Mental health was measured with the GHQ-12 using GHQ2+, GHQ3+, and GHQ4+ thresholds. Analyses included adjusted risk ratios controlling for age and gender, and logistic regressions producing odds ratios, relative weights, and Nagelkerke R² values (0.202 for GHQ2+ and 0.204 for GHQ4+), with controls for gender, age, partner, and children.
Limitations
- The paper states that the cross-sectional design prevents causal conclusions, including possible self-selection or the alternative that distressed PhD students evaluate their environment more negatively.
- The paper also states that findings may be specific to Flanders, that financial conditions differ from countries where PhD students face more financial worries, and that GHQ4+ is a probabilistic screening measure rather than a clinical diagnosis.
- Evident from the text: the 33% response rate and selective non-response may affect prevalence estimates; all mental health measures are self-reported; and the higher education student comparison group was pooled across multiple survey years.
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Claims the paper makes
65 Own result · 28 No full text of the sources · 14 Own method · 11 Own interpretation · 10 Sources not found · 4 Partly supported · 1 Not checked yet · 1 No basis given · accuracy not yet measured
The cited sources support only part of this claim — read each source’s verdict below.
In the paper
“Studies almost unanimously report a consistent link between high job demands and emotional exhaustion and depressive feelings (e.g.De Lange et al., 2004).”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 2.3.1. Work context Work roles and workload demands, job control, support by peers or supervisors, and job insecurity are the most frequently examined characteristics of the work context (e.g.WHO, 2010).Studies almost unanimously report a consistent link between high job demands and emotional exhaustion and depressive feelings (e.g.De Lange et al., 2004).While PhD students clearly have different roles, tasks and responsibilities to fulfill than regular employees do, we believe that there are a series of common psychological characteristics that make it useful to study PhD students' roles through the lens of the organizational context in which they perform their study and research work.For reasons of clarity, we use the commonly accepted terminology in occupational health psychology, with the clear understanding that work-related aspects, such as job demands, refer to the demands experienced by students in their specific study and research roles.Job demands are those physical, social or organizational aspects of the job that require sustained physical or mental effort.Job control on the other hand, refers to control over the work environment, more specifically over the pace of work, the timing of breaks, or the use of skills (Karasek and Theorell, 1990).Most, but not all, occupational health studies find significant emotional costs when job control is low (De Lange et al., 2004;Vanroelen et al., 2009).Existing research on occupational stress in university staff has consistently found work load to be one of the main causes of stress (e.g.Gillespie et al., 2001;Winefield et al., 2003;Kinman, 2001;Kinman et al., 2006;Tytherleigh et al., 2005;Biron et al., 2008;Sun et al., 2011;Mark and Smith, 2012;Boyd et al., 2011). For PhD students, the balance between demands and control might be different across scientific disciplines as it entails differences in academic practice.Writing a doctoral dissertation in the natural sciences may entail working as part of a large team within a specific well-defined project, and operating with pre-defined, transparent quantitative publication criteria (Larivière, 2012).For PhD students in the humanities and social sciences, establishing one's own research idea (and thus often working in isolation) may constitute more of a challenge in terms of perseverance, given also the lack of consensus over the quality criteria in these fields (Long and Fox, 1995).
What the sources say
- Partly supportedcites De Lange et al., 2004 sourceExperimental — accuracy not yet measured
The Correlational analyses section reports that higher job demands predicted increases in both depression and emotional exhaustion over time. The paper therefore supports the link, but its findings do not establish the claim that studies report it almost unanimously; the Introduction describes mixed support for the broader high-strain hypothesis. The supplied passages give no page numbers. (LLM, conf=0.84)
boostedcorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: unclear — It is unclear whether the paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
- Partly supported
The cited sources support only part of this claim — read each source’s verdict below.
In the paper
“Low support at work has long been found to affect levels of anxiety, emotional exhaustion, job tension and job satisfaction (e.g.De Lange et al., 2004;Vanroelen et al., 2009).”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 2.3.1. Work context Work roles and workload demands, job control, support by peers or supervisors, and job insecurity are the most frequently examined characteristics of the work context (e.g.WHO, 2010).Studies almost unanimously report a consistent link between high job demands and emotional exhaustion and depressive feelings (e.g.De Lange et al., 2004).While PhD students clearly have different roles, tasks and responsibilities to fulfill than regular employees do, we believe that there are a series of common psychological characteristics that make it useful to study PhD students' roles through the lens of the organizational context in which they perform their study and research work.For reasons of clarity, we use the commonly accepted terminology in occupational health psychology, with the clear understanding that work-related aspects, such as job demands, refer to the demands experienced by students in their specific study and research roles.Job demands are those physical, social or organizational aspects of the job that require sustained physical or mental effort.Job control on the other hand, refers to control over the work environment, more specifically over the pace of work, the timing of breaks, or the use of skills (Karasek and Theorell, 1990).Most, but not all, occupational health studies find significant emotional costs when job control is low (De Lange et al., 2004;Vanroelen et al., 2009).Existing research on occupational stress in university staff has consistently found work load to be one of the main causes of stress (e.g.Gillespie et al., 2001;Winefield et al., 2003;Kinman, 2001;Kinman et al., 2006;Tytherleigh et al., 2005;Biron et al., 2008;Sun et al., 2011;Mark and Smith, 2012;Boyd et al., 2011). For PhD students, the balance between demands and control might be different across scientific disciplines as it entails differences in academic practice.Writing a doctoral dissertation in the natural sciences may entail working as part of a large team within a specific well-defined project, and operating with pre-defined, transparent quantitative publication criteria (Larivière, 2012).For PhD students in the humanities and social sciences, establishing one's own research idea (and thus often working in isolation) may constitute more of a challenge in terms of perseverance, given also the lack of consensus over the quality criteria in these fields (Long and Fox, 1995).
What the sources say
- Partly supportedcites De Lange et al., 2004 sourceExperimental — accuracy not yet measured
The Correlational analyses section (page unavailable) reports that greater supervisor support was associated with lower emotional exhaustion over time. It does not report that support affected anxiety or job tension; for job satisfaction, the reported direction runs from satisfaction to later supervisor support, not the reverse. (LLM, conf=0.88)
- Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Vanroelen et al., 2009 source
boosteddirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: unclear — It is unclear whether the paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
- Partly supported
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Especially workfamily interface, job demands and job control, the supervisor's leadership style, team decision-making culture, and perception of a career outside academia are linked to mental health problems.”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > Abstract
plaincorrelationaln = 3,659- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
- Rests on an assumption: The sample of 3659 PhD students in Flanders, Belgium is representative of the population of PhD students in Flanders.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Especially workfamily interface, job demands and job control, the supervisor's leadership style, team decision-making culture, and perception of a career outside academia are linked to mental health problems.”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > Abstract
plaincorrelationaln = 3,659- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
- Rests on an assumption: The sample of 3659 PhD students in Flanders, Belgium is representative of the population of PhD students in Flanders.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Especially workfamily interface, job demands and job control, the supervisor's leadership style, team decision-making culture, and perception of a career outside academia are linked to mental health problems.”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > Abstract
plaincorrelationaln = 3,659- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
- Rests on an assumption: The sample of 3659 PhD students in Flanders, Belgium is representative of the population of PhD students in Flanders.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“This estimate was significantly higher than those obtained in the comparison groups.”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > Abstract
plainn = 3,659- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
- Rests on an assumption: The sample of 3659 PhD students in Flanders, Belgium is representative of the population of PhD students in Flanders.
- Rests on an assumption: The comparison groups (highly educated general population, highly educated employees, higher education students) are comparable to PhD students for the purpose of comparing mental health prevalence.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Organizational policies were significantly associated with the prevalence of mental health problems.”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > Abstract
plaincorrelationaln = 3,659- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
- Rests on an assumption: The sample of 3659 PhD students in Flanders, Belgium is representative of the population of PhD students in Flanders.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Especially workfamily interface, job demands and job control, the supervisor's leadership style, team decision-making culture, and perception of a career outside academia are linked to mental health problems.”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > Abstract
plaincorrelationaln = 3,659- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
- Rests on an assumption: The sample of 3659 PhD students in Flanders, Belgium is representative of the population of PhD students in Flanders.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Especially workfamily interface, job demands and job control, the supervisor's leadership style, team decision-making culture, and perception of a career outside academia are linked to mental health problems.”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > Abstract
plaincorrelationaln = 3,659- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
- Rests on an assumption: The sample of 3659 PhD students in Flanders, Belgium is representative of the population of PhD students in Flanders.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Especially workfamily interface, job demands and job control, the supervisor's leadership style, team decision-making culture, and perception of a career outside academia are linked to mental health problems.”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > Abstract
plaincorrelationaln = 3,659- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
- Rests on an assumption: The sample of 3659 PhD students in Flanders, Belgium is representative of the population of PhD students in Flanders.
- Probably not a substantial claim. 45
- It may state two separate claims as one. 30
The cited sources support only part of this claim — read each source’s verdict below.
In the paper
“Most, but not all, occupational health studies find significant emotional costs when job control is low (De Lange et al., 2004;Vanroelen et al., 2009).”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 2.3.1. Work context Work roles and workload demands, job control, support by peers or supervisors, and job insecurity are the most frequently examined characteristics of the work context (e.g.WHO, 2010).Studies almost unanimously report a consistent link between high job demands and emotional exhaustion and depressive feelings (e.g.De Lange et al., 2004).While PhD students clearly have different roles, tasks and responsibilities to fulfill than regular employees do, we believe that there are a series of common psychological characteristics that make it useful to study PhD students' roles through the lens of the organizational context in which they perform their study and research work.For reasons of clarity, we use the commonly accepted terminology in occupational health psychology, with the clear understanding that work-related aspects, such as job demands, refer to the demands experienced by students in their specific study and research roles.Job demands are those physical, social or organizational aspects of the job that require sustained physical or mental effort.Job control on the other hand, refers to control over the work environment, more specifically over the pace of work, the timing of breaks, or the use of skills (Karasek and Theorell, 1990).Most, but not all, occupational health studies find significant emotional costs when job control is low (De Lange et al., 2004;Vanroelen et al., 2009).Existing research on occupational stress in university staff has consistently found work load to be one of the main causes of stress (e.g.Gillespie et al., 2001;Winefield et al., 2003;Kinman, 2001;Kinman et al., 2006;Tytherleigh et al., 2005;Biron et al., 2008;Sun et al., 2011;Mark and Smith, 2012;Boyd et al., 2011). For PhD students, the balance between demands and control might be different across scientific disciplines as it entails differences in academic practice.Writing a doctoral dissertation in the natural sciences may entail working as part of a large team within a specific well-defined project, and operating with pre-defined, transparent quantitative publication criteria (Larivière, 2012).For PhD students in the humanities and social sciences, establishing one's own research idea (and thus often working in isolation) may constitute more of a challenge in terms of perseverance, given also the lack of consensus over the quality criteria in these fields (Long and Fox, 1995).
What the sources say
- Partly supportedcites De Lange et al., 2004 sourceExperimental — accuracy not yet measured
The Introduction (page unavailable) says studies of high-strain jobs have yielded mixed support for adverse health effects, but it does not say most studies find significant effects or isolate low job control from high demands and low support. The Correlational analyses section (page unavailable) links greater job control to greater subsequent job satisfaction, not to lower depression or emotional exhaustion. (LLM, conf=0.83)
- Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Vanroelen et al., 2009 source
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Partly supported
The cited sources support only part of this claim — read each source’s verdict below.
In the paper
“As prior research has shown that both employment frustration (not finding the work one wants) and reward frustration (e.g.poor promotion prospects) have an impact on self-reported mental health (e.g.Castro et al., 2010), the current study will also examine the career prospects of PhD students.”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 2.3.1. Work context Work roles and workload demands, job control, support by peers or supervisors, and job insecurity are the most frequently examined characteristics of the work context (e.g.WHO, 2010).Studies almost unanimously report a consistent link between high job demands and emotional exhaustion and depressive feelings (e.g.De Lange et al., 2004).While PhD students clearly have different roles, tasks and responsibilities to fulfill than regular employees do, we believe that there are a series of common psychological characteristics that make it useful to study PhD students' roles through the lens of the organizational context in which they perform their study and research work.For reasons of clarity, we use the commonly accepted terminology in occupational health psychology, with the clear understanding that work-related aspects, such as job demands, refer to the demands experienced by students in their specific study and research roles.Job demands are those physical, social or organizational aspects of the job that require sustained physical or mental effort.Job control on the other hand, refers to control over the work environment, more specifically over the pace of work, the timing of breaks, or the use of skills (Karasek and Theorell, 1990).Most, but not all, occupational health studies find significant emotional costs when job control is low (De Lange et al., 2004;Vanroelen et al., 2009).Existing research on occupational stress in university staff has consistently found work load to be one of the main causes of stress (e.g.Gillespie et al., 2001;Winefield et al., 2003;Kinman, 2001;Kinman et al., 2006;Tytherleigh et al., 2005;Biron et al., 2008;Sun et al., 2011;Mark and Smith, 2012;Boyd et al., 2011). For PhD students, the balance between demands and control might be different across scientific disciplines as it entails differences in academic practice.Writing a doctoral dissertation in the natural sciences may entail working as part of a large team within a specific well-defined project, and operating with pre-defined, transparent quantitative publication criteria (Larivière, 2012).For PhD students in the humanities and social sciences, establishing one's own research idea (and thus often working in isolation) may constitute more of a challenge in terms of perseverance, given also the lack of consensus over the quality criteria in these fields (Long and Fox, 1995).
What the sources say
- Partly supportedcites Castro et al., 2010 sourceExperimental — accuracy not yet measured
The Results and Discussion report an association between employment frustration and lower self-rated mental health among Asian immigrants. The Measures and Limitations sections show that promotion prospects were not measured separately as “reward frustration”; the paper also says its cross-sectional data cannot establish a causal impact. Page numbers were not available in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.88)
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. It may state two separate claims as one.
- Partly supported
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Results based on 12 mental health symptoms (GHQ-12) showed that 32% of PhD students are at risk of having or developing a common psychiatric disorder, especially depression.”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > Abstract
plainn = 3,659- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
- Rests on an assumption: The sample of 3659 PhD students in Flanders, Belgium is representative of the population of PhD students in Flanders.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“As shown in Fig. 1, the number of faculty in Flanders has only marginally increased over the past 15 years, leading to an increased ratio of 3.2 PhD students per faculty member in 2014.”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 2.1. PhD students in Flanders, Belgium
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: unclear — It is unclear whether the paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“The association with GHQ4+ was in the same direction, but not statistically significant.”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 4. Results
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: unclear — It is unclear whether the paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Most important was work-family conflict (% RW = 34.1% and 29.8% for GHQ2+ and GHQ4+, respectively), and this was more important than family-work conflict (% RW = 10.2% and 12.2% for GHQ2+ and GHQ4+, respectively).”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 4. Results
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
A claim is checked only against the cited paper’s full text, never its abstract, and none is available for its sources.
In the paper
“The value of the Nagelkerke R2 (pseudo R2) was 0.202 for the GHQ2+ and 0.204 for the GHQ4+, which were reasonable effect sizes for psychological research in the workplace (Bosco et al., 2015;Landry et al., 2006).”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 4. Results
What the sources say
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Most prevalent are feelings of being under constant strain, unhappiness and depression, sleeping problems due to worries, inability to overcome difficulties and not being able to enjoy day-to-day activities.”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 5.2. Summary of main findings
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: unclear — It is unclear whether the paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“The analyses revealed significant relationships with psychological distress (GHQ2+) and with the risk of having or developing a common psychiatric disorder (GHQ4+) in case of high job demands and low job control.”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 4. Results
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Comparing PhD students with higher education students, we observed that differences in mental health were smaller than for the other comparison groups, but the prevalence remained higher in PhD students.”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 4. Results
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: unclear — It is unclear whether the paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
In the paper
“Other studies, especially European and Australian ones, have tended to utilize samples of university employees in general and mostly reported aggregate findings (Kinman, 2008), making it difficult to draw fine-grained conclusions on the mental health of PhD students as a separate category.”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > Differences
What the sources say
- Not matchedcites Kinman, 2008
Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
- Not matched
A claim is checked only against the cited paper’s full text, never its abstract, and none is available for its sources.
In the paper
“Existing research on occupational stress in university staff has consistently found work load to be one of the main causes of stress (e.g.Gillespie et al., 2001;Winefield et al., 2003;Kinman, 2001;Kinman et al., 2006;Tytherleigh et al., 2005;Biron et al., 2008;Sun et al., 2011;Mark and Smith, 2012;Boyd et al., 2011).”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 2.3.1. Work context Work roles and workload demands, job control, support by peers or supervisors, and job insecurity are the most frequently examined characteristics of the work context (e.g.WHO, 2010).Studies almost unanimously report a consistent link between high job demands and emotional exhaustion and depressive feelings (e.g.De Lange et al., 2004).While PhD students clearly have different roles, tasks and responsibilities to fulfill than regular employees do, we believe that there are a series of common psychological characteristics that make it useful to study PhD students' roles through the lens of the organizational context in which they perform their study and research work.For reasons of clarity, we use the commonly accepted terminology in occupational health psychology, with the clear understanding that work-related aspects, such as job demands, refer to the demands experienced by students in their specific study and research roles.Job demands are those physical, social or organizational aspects of the job that require sustained physical or mental effort.Job control on the other hand, refers to control over the work environment, more specifically over the pace of work, the timing of breaks, or the use of skills (Karasek and Theorell, 1990).Most, but not all, occupational health studies find significant emotional costs when job control is low (De Lange et al., 2004;Vanroelen et al., 2009).Existing research on occupational stress in university staff has consistently found work load to be one of the main causes of stress (e.g.Gillespie et al., 2001;Winefield et al., 2003;Kinman, 2001;Kinman et al., 2006;Tytherleigh et al., 2005;Biron et al., 2008;Sun et al., 2011;Mark and Smith, 2012;Boyd et al., 2011). For PhD students, the balance between demands and control might be different across scientific disciplines as it entails differences in academic practice.Writing a doctoral dissertation in the natural sciences may entail working as part of a large team within a specific well-defined project, and operating with pre-defined, transparent quantitative publication criteria (Larivière, 2012).For PhD students in the humanities and social sciences, establishing one's own research idea (and thus often working in isolation) may constitute more of a challenge in terms of perseverance, given also the lack of consensus over the quality criteria in these fields (Long and Fox, 1995).
What the sources say
boosteddirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
A claim is checked only against the cited paper’s full text, never its abstract, and none is available for its sources.
In the paper
“Second, the number of published studies focusing on mental health of PhD students is limited (El-Ghoroury et al., 2012), as most studies have focused on the undergraduate level (Peluso et al., 2011).”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > Differences
What the sources say
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
The paper states this without a source or data behind it here, so there is nothing to check it against. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Given the current lack of an empirical basis for mental health concerns and solutions, the current study has three aims.”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 1.2. Why is the mental health of PhD students important for research policy?
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: fails — The paper may give no reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper may give no reason why it holds.
None of the sources cited for this claim have been checked yet.
In the paper
“The most widely used measurement instrument in occupational health research, the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ), enables researchers to tap into both psychological distress and depression (Goldberg, 1972;Goldberg and Williams, 1988).”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > Differences
What the sources say
- Not matchedcites Goldberg, 1972
Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.
- Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Goldberg and Williams, 1988
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
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Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Not matched
In the paper
“Several studies have found evidence for the role of task and relational conflict on employee well-being (e.g.Martinez-Corts et al., 2015).”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 2.3.2. Organizational context
What the sources say
- Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Martinez-Corts et al., 2015 source
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
In the paper
“Job demands and job control were assessed using the Dutch VBBA-quality of labor questionnaire (Vanroelen et al., 2009).”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 3.3.2. Work context
What the sources say
- Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Vanroelen et al., 2009 source
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim.
In the paper
“Flanders has seen a rise in PhD production that is substantially larger than in other EU countries: in the academic year 2013-2014, a total of 1724 new doctorates were awarded, which is an increase of 71% compared to 2004-2005(ECOOM, 2015)).”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 2.1. PhD students in Flanders, Belgium
What the sources say
- Not matchedcites ECOOM, 2015
Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it. It may state two separate claims as one.
- Not matched
What the paper did — it cites no source for this, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Internal consistency was 0.85 for the job demands scale and 0.88 for the job control scale.”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 3.3.2. Work context
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it. It may state two separate claims as one.
In the paper
“In their cross discipline study in nine US research universities, Fox et al. (2011) show that it is important to consider both the conflict of work with family life and the conflict of family life with work.”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 2.3.2. Organizational context
What the sources say
- Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Fox et al., 2011 source
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it. It may state two separate claims as one.
In the paper
“In a Finnish study of 383 PhD students, Stubb et al. (2011) found that 44% reported the academic community as a source of empowerment, enthusiasm and inspiration, while 56% experienced it as a source of burden.”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 2.3.1. Work context Work roles and workload demands, job control, support by peers or supervisors, and job insecurity are the most frequently examined characteristics of the work context (e.g.WHO, 2010).Studies almost unanimously report a consistent link between high job demands and emotional exhaustion and depressive feelings (e.g.De Lange et al., 2004).While PhD students clearly have different roles, tasks and responsibilities to fulfill than regular employees do, we believe that there are a series of common psychological characteristics that make it useful to study PhD students' roles through the lens of the organizational context in which they perform their study and research work.For reasons of clarity, we use the commonly accepted terminology in occupational health psychology, with the clear understanding that work-related aspects, such as job demands, refer to the demands experienced by students in their specific study and research roles.Job demands are those physical, social or organizational aspects of the job that require sustained physical or mental effort.Job control on the other hand, refers to control over the work environment, more specifically over the pace of work, the timing of breaks, or the use of skills (Karasek and Theorell, 1990).Most, but not all, occupational health studies find significant emotional costs when job control is low (De Lange et al., 2004;Vanroelen et al., 2009).Existing research on occupational stress in university staff has consistently found work load to be one of the main causes of stress (e.g.Gillespie et al., 2001;Winefield et al., 2003;Kinman, 2001;Kinman et al., 2006;Tytherleigh et al., 2005;Biron et al., 2008;Sun et al., 2011;Mark and Smith, 2012;Boyd et al., 2011). For PhD students, the balance between demands and control might be different across scientific disciplines as it entails differences in academic practice.Writing a doctoral dissertation in the natural sciences may entail working as part of a large team within a specific well-defined project, and operating with pre-defined, transparent quantitative publication criteria (Larivière, 2012).For PhD students in the humanities and social sciences, establishing one's own research idea (and thus often working in isolation) may constitute more of a challenge in terms of perseverance, given also the lack of consensus over the quality criteria in these fields (Long and Fox, 1995).
What the sources say
- Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Stubb et al. (2011) source
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: unclear — It is unclear whether the paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
In the paper
“The GHQ is a screening instrument to identify psychological distress and potential cases of common psychiatric disorder (especially depression), leaving the task of diagnosing actual disorder to a psychiatric interview (McDowell, 2006).”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 3.3.1. Mental health problems Mental health problems were measured using the 12-item version of the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) (Goldberg, 1972;Goldberg and Williams, 1988).The GHQ is a screening instrument to identify psychological distress and potential cases of common psychiatric disorder (especially depression), leaving the task of diagnosing actual disorder to a psychiatric interview (McDowell, 2006).The GHQ is the most frequently used scale worldwide to tap into psychological well-being (e.g.Boyd et al., 2011).The internal consistency of the GHQ-12 was 0.88 in Sample 1 and 0.87 in Sample 2. The 12 GHQ items are presented in Table 3. GHQ items explore the respondent's experience in recent weeks compared to his or her usual experience.Response categories are item-specific but all responses are given on 4-point Likert-type scales.We adopt the GHQ scoring method, which uses a bimodal 0-0-1-1 scheme (to score subsequent response categories), conceiving the respondent's total number of 1 scores over the 12 items as an indication of the number of symptoms experienced.In order to determine that a person has a mental health problem, (s)he should experience a minimum number of symptoms.The literature reports substantial variation in the minimum number of symptoms to be considered (Goldberg et al., 1997).In the current study we opt for the GHQ2+ (presence of at least 2 symptoms), indicating psychological distress.We also assess the GHQ4+ (presence of at least 4 symptoms), indicating the risk of having or developing a common psychiatric disorder (especially depression) (Goldberg, 1972;Goldberg and Williams, 1988).A worldwide study on mental health by the World Health Organization suggests using the GHQ4+ if the mean GHQ score in the sample is higher than 2.70 (Goldberg et al., 1998).In Sample 1, the mean GHQ score is 2.84.However, for reasons of comparison with other studies on mental health in the university sector (see Table 2), we also include the GHQ3+ (presence of at least 3 symptoms) when calculating prevalence. Preliminary multigroup confirmatory factor analyses across both samples in our study attested to the stability of the measurement model underlying the GHQ.
What the sources say
- Not matchedcites McDowell, 2006
Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it. It may state two separate claims as one.
- Not matched
What the paper did — it cites no source for this, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“There were 4069 participants (response rate of 33%).”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 3.1. Sample 1: PhD students
plainn = 4,069- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it. It may state two separate claims as one.
What the paper did — it cites no source for this, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Cronbach's alphas were 0.93, 0.78 and 0.74 for the three leadership styles, respectively.”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 3.3.2. Work context
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
What the paper did — it cites no source for this, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Preliminary analyses showed that pooling of HIS data over years was warranted as year of survey administration had no impact on mental health outcomes.”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 3.2. Sample 2: comparison groups
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
What the paper did — it cites no source for this, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“The internal consistency of the GHQ-12 was 0.88 in Sample 1 and 0.87 in Sample 2.”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 3.3.1. Mental health problems Mental health problems were measured using the 12-item version of the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) (Goldberg, 1972;Goldberg and Williams, 1988).The GHQ is a screening instrument to identify psychological distress and potential cases of common psychiatric disorder (especially depression), leaving the task of diagnosing actual disorder to a psychiatric interview (McDowell, 2006).The GHQ is the most frequently used scale worldwide to tap into psychological well-being (e.g.Boyd et al., 2011).The internal consistency of the GHQ-12 was 0.88 in Sample 1 and 0.87 in Sample 2. The 12 GHQ items are presented in Table 3. GHQ items explore the respondent's experience in recent weeks compared to his or her usual experience.Response categories are item-specific but all responses are given on 4-point Likert-type scales.We adopt the GHQ scoring method, which uses a bimodal 0-0-1-1 scheme (to score subsequent response categories), conceiving the respondent's total number of 1 scores over the 12 items as an indication of the number of symptoms experienced.In order to determine that a person has a mental health problem, (s)he should experience a minimum number of symptoms.The literature reports substantial variation in the minimum number of symptoms to be considered (Goldberg et al., 1997).In the current study we opt for the GHQ2+ (presence of at least 2 symptoms), indicating psychological distress.We also assess the GHQ4+ (presence of at least 4 symptoms), indicating the risk of having or developing a common psychiatric disorder (especially depression) (Goldberg, 1972;Goldberg and Williams, 1988).A worldwide study on mental health by the World Health Organization suggests using the GHQ4+ if the mean GHQ score in the sample is higher than 2.70 (Goldberg et al., 1998).In Sample 1, the mean GHQ score is 2.84.However, for reasons of comparison with other studies on mental health in the university sector (see Table 2), we also include the GHQ3+ (presence of at least 3 symptoms) when calculating prevalence. Preliminary multigroup confirmatory factor analyses across both samples in our study attested to the stability of the measurement model underlying the GHQ.
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: unclear — It is unclear whether the paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
In the paper
“However, with the exception of Post et al. (2009), few studies among academics have addressed work-family conflict bi-directionally.”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 2.3.2. Organizational context
What the sources say
- Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Post et al., 2009 source
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
A claim is checked only against the cited paper’s full text, never its abstract, and none is available for its sources.
In the paper
“A lack of social support has been identified as a major source of occupational stress in university staff (Gillespie et al., 2001;Biron et al., 2008).”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 2.3.1. Work context Work roles and workload demands, job control, support by peers or supervisors, and job insecurity are the most frequently examined characteristics of the work context (e.g.WHO, 2010).Studies almost unanimously report a consistent link between high job demands and emotional exhaustion and depressive feelings (e.g.De Lange et al., 2004).While PhD students clearly have different roles, tasks and responsibilities to fulfill than regular employees do, we believe that there are a series of common psychological characteristics that make it useful to study PhD students' roles through the lens of the organizational context in which they perform their study and research work.For reasons of clarity, we use the commonly accepted terminology in occupational health psychology, with the clear understanding that work-related aspects, such as job demands, refer to the demands experienced by students in their specific study and research roles.Job demands are those physical, social or organizational aspects of the job that require sustained physical or mental effort.Job control on the other hand, refers to control over the work environment, more specifically over the pace of work, the timing of breaks, or the use of skills (Karasek and Theorell, 1990).Most, but not all, occupational health studies find significant emotional costs when job control is low (De Lange et al., 2004;Vanroelen et al., 2009).Existing research on occupational stress in university staff has consistently found work load to be one of the main causes of stress (e.g.Gillespie et al., 2001;Winefield et al., 2003;Kinman, 2001;Kinman et al., 2006;Tytherleigh et al., 2005;Biron et al., 2008;Sun et al., 2011;Mark and Smith, 2012;Boyd et al., 2011). For PhD students, the balance between demands and control might be different across scientific disciplines as it entails differences in academic practice.Writing a doctoral dissertation in the natural sciences may entail working as part of a large team within a specific well-defined project, and operating with pre-defined, transparent quantitative publication criteria (Larivière, 2012).For PhD students in the humanities and social sciences, establishing one's own research idea (and thus often working in isolation) may constitute more of a challenge in terms of perseverance, given also the lack of consensus over the quality criteria in these fields (Long and Fox, 1995).
What the sources say
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
In the paper
“Workers' participation in decision making has often been shown to reduce job-related emotional strain, job dissatisfaction, absenteeism and turnover intentions (e.g.Rhoades and Eisenberger, 2002).”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 2.3.2. Organizational context
What the sources say
- Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Rhoades and Eisenberger, 2002 source
boosteddirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it. It may state two separate claims as one.
In the paper
“Team conflict was assessed using Jehn's (1995) Intragroup Conflict scale.”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 3.3.3. Organizational context
What the sources say
- Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Jehn, 1995 source
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
A claim is checked only against the cited paper’s full text, never its abstract, and none is available for its sources.
In the paper
“According to Kinman (2001), the social interaction patterns between university staff have shifted from a culture of collegiality to a bureaucratic culture and a management style in which consultation and participation in decision making are given less importance (see also Biron et al., 2008).”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 2.3.2. Organizational context
What the sources say
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
In the paper
“As the supplyside of PhD production steadily increases, and the demand-side of tenure track positions remains largely unaltered (see Fig. 1), more and more students turn to the nonacademic labor market after obtaining their PhD, often regarding this as a second-choice option (Van Damme, 2014).”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 2.3.1. Work context Work roles and workload demands, job control, support by peers or supervisors, and job insecurity are the most frequently examined characteristics of the work context (e.g.WHO, 2010).Studies almost unanimously report a consistent link between high job demands and emotional exhaustion and depressive feelings (e.g.De Lange et al., 2004).While PhD students clearly have different roles, tasks and responsibilities to fulfill than regular employees do, we believe that there are a series of common psychological characteristics that make it useful to study PhD students' roles through the lens of the organizational context in which they perform their study and research work.For reasons of clarity, we use the commonly accepted terminology in occupational health psychology, with the clear understanding that work-related aspects, such as job demands, refer to the demands experienced by students in their specific study and research roles.Job demands are those physical, social or organizational aspects of the job that require sustained physical or mental effort.Job control on the other hand, refers to control over the work environment, more specifically over the pace of work, the timing of breaks, or the use of skills (Karasek and Theorell, 1990).Most, but not all, occupational health studies find significant emotional costs when job control is low (De Lange et al., 2004;Vanroelen et al., 2009).Existing research on occupational stress in university staff has consistently found work load to be one of the main causes of stress (e.g.Gillespie et al., 2001;Winefield et al., 2003;Kinman, 2001;Kinman et al., 2006;Tytherleigh et al., 2005;Biron et al., 2008;Sun et al., 2011;Mark and Smith, 2012;Boyd et al., 2011). For PhD students, the balance between demands and control might be different across scientific disciplines as it entails differences in academic practice.Writing a doctoral dissertation in the natural sciences may entail working as part of a large team within a specific well-defined project, and operating with pre-defined, transparent quantitative publication criteria (Larivière, 2012).For PhD students in the humanities and social sciences, establishing one's own research idea (and thus often working in isolation) may constitute more of a challenge in terms of perseverance, given also the lack of consensus over the quality criteria in these fields (Long and Fox, 1995).
What the sources say
- Not matchedcites Van Damme, 2014
Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: unclear — It is unclear whether the paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
- Not matched
In the paper
“According to the WHO (2010), the interplay between work and home is also a significant potential source of stress impacting mental health, particularly for dual career couples and those experiencing financial difficulties or life crises.”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 2.3.2. Organizational context
What the sources say
- Not matchedcites WHO (2010)
Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.
plainconditional- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Not matched
In the paper
“These surveys are periodically organized in Belgium by the Scientific Institute of Public Health and follow a similar research design and procedures as for Sample 1.”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 3.2. Sample 2: comparison groups
What the sources say
- Not matchedcites HIS, 2013
Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim.
- Not matched
In the paper
“The GHQ is the most frequently used scale worldwide to tap into psychological well-being (e.g.Boyd et al., 2011).”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 3.3.1. Mental health problems Mental health problems were measured using the 12-item version of the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) (Goldberg, 1972;Goldberg and Williams, 1988).The GHQ is a screening instrument to identify psychological distress and potential cases of common psychiatric disorder (especially depression), leaving the task of diagnosing actual disorder to a psychiatric interview (McDowell, 2006).The GHQ is the most frequently used scale worldwide to tap into psychological well-being (e.g.Boyd et al., 2011).The internal consistency of the GHQ-12 was 0.88 in Sample 1 and 0.87 in Sample 2. The 12 GHQ items are presented in Table 3. GHQ items explore the respondent's experience in recent weeks compared to his or her usual experience.Response categories are item-specific but all responses are given on 4-point Likert-type scales.We adopt the GHQ scoring method, which uses a bimodal 0-0-1-1 scheme (to score subsequent response categories), conceiving the respondent's total number of 1 scores over the 12 items as an indication of the number of symptoms experienced.In order to determine that a person has a mental health problem, (s)he should experience a minimum number of symptoms.The literature reports substantial variation in the minimum number of symptoms to be considered (Goldberg et al., 1997).In the current study we opt for the GHQ2+ (presence of at least 2 symptoms), indicating psychological distress.We also assess the GHQ4+ (presence of at least 4 symptoms), indicating the risk of having or developing a common psychiatric disorder (especially depression) (Goldberg, 1972;Goldberg and Williams, 1988).A worldwide study on mental health by the World Health Organization suggests using the GHQ4+ if the mean GHQ score in the sample is higher than 2.70 (Goldberg et al., 1998).In Sample 1, the mean GHQ score is 2.84.However, for reasons of comparison with other studies on mental health in the university sector (see Table 2), we also include the GHQ3+ (presence of at least 3 symptoms) when calculating prevalence. Preliminary multigroup confirmatory factor analyses across both samples in our study attested to the stability of the measurement model underlying the GHQ.
What the sources say
- Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Boyd et al., 2011 source
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
A claim is checked only against the cited paper’s full text, never its abstract, and none is available for its sources.
In the paper
“As in other settings, work-home conflict in the university sector has also shown particularly strong relations with psychological distress (Kinman and Jones, 2003;Kinman et al., 2006).”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 2.3.2. Organizational context
What the sources say
boostedcorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
In the paper
“A worldwide study on mental health by the World Health Organization suggests using the GHQ4+ if the mean GHQ score in the sample is higher than 2.70 (Goldberg et al., 1998).”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 3.3.1. Mental health problems Mental health problems were measured using the 12-item version of the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) (Goldberg, 1972;Goldberg and Williams, 1988).The GHQ is a screening instrument to identify psychological distress and potential cases of common psychiatric disorder (especially depression), leaving the task of diagnosing actual disorder to a psychiatric interview (McDowell, 2006).The GHQ is the most frequently used scale worldwide to tap into psychological well-being (e.g.Boyd et al., 2011).The internal consistency of the GHQ-12 was 0.88 in Sample 1 and 0.87 in Sample 2. The 12 GHQ items are presented in Table 3. GHQ items explore the respondent's experience in recent weeks compared to his or her usual experience.Response categories are item-specific but all responses are given on 4-point Likert-type scales.We adopt the GHQ scoring method, which uses a bimodal 0-0-1-1 scheme (to score subsequent response categories), conceiving the respondent's total number of 1 scores over the 12 items as an indication of the number of symptoms experienced.In order to determine that a person has a mental health problem, (s)he should experience a minimum number of symptoms.The literature reports substantial variation in the minimum number of symptoms to be considered (Goldberg et al., 1997).In the current study we opt for the GHQ2+ (presence of at least 2 symptoms), indicating psychological distress.We also assess the GHQ4+ (presence of at least 4 symptoms), indicating the risk of having or developing a common psychiatric disorder (especially depression) (Goldberg, 1972;Goldberg and Williams, 1988).A worldwide study on mental health by the World Health Organization suggests using the GHQ4+ if the mean GHQ score in the sample is higher than 2.70 (Goldberg et al., 1998).In Sample 1, the mean GHQ score is 2.84.However, for reasons of comparison with other studies on mental health in the university sector (see Table 2), we also include the GHQ3+ (presence of at least 3 symptoms) when calculating prevalence. Preliminary multigroup confirmatory factor analyses across both samples in our study attested to the stability of the measurement model underlying the GHQ.
What the sources say
- Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Goldberg et al., 1998 source
hedged- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim.
What the paper did — it cites no source for this, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Selective non-response analyses showed a slightly higher proportion of females, respondents in the youngest age categories, social scientists and Belgians compared to the total population.”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 3.1. Sample 1: PhD students
plaincorrelationaln = 4,069- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it. It may state two separate claims as one.
In the paper
“Inspirational leadership style, autocratic leadership style, and 'laissez-faire' or passive leadership style were measured using 11, 6 and 4 items respectively (de Hoogh et al., 2004).”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 3.3.2. Work context
What the sources say
- Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites de Hoogh et al., 2004 source
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it. It may state two separate claims as one.
In the paper
“The literature reports substantial variation in the minimum number of symptoms to be considered (Goldberg et al., 1997).”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 3.3.1. Mental health problems Mental health problems were measured using the 12-item version of the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) (Goldberg, 1972;Goldberg and Williams, 1988).The GHQ is a screening instrument to identify psychological distress and potential cases of common psychiatric disorder (especially depression), leaving the task of diagnosing actual disorder to a psychiatric interview (McDowell, 2006).The GHQ is the most frequently used scale worldwide to tap into psychological well-being (e.g.Boyd et al., 2011).The internal consistency of the GHQ-12 was 0.88 in Sample 1 and 0.87 in Sample 2. The 12 GHQ items are presented in Table 3. GHQ items explore the respondent's experience in recent weeks compared to his or her usual experience.Response categories are item-specific but all responses are given on 4-point Likert-type scales.We adopt the GHQ scoring method, which uses a bimodal 0-0-1-1 scheme (to score subsequent response categories), conceiving the respondent's total number of 1 scores over the 12 items as an indication of the number of symptoms experienced.In order to determine that a person has a mental health problem, (s)he should experience a minimum number of symptoms.The literature reports substantial variation in the minimum number of symptoms to be considered (Goldberg et al., 1997).In the current study we opt for the GHQ2+ (presence of at least 2 symptoms), indicating psychological distress.We also assess the GHQ4+ (presence of at least 4 symptoms), indicating the risk of having or developing a common psychiatric disorder (especially depression) (Goldberg, 1972;Goldberg and Williams, 1988).A worldwide study on mental health by the World Health Organization suggests using the GHQ4+ if the mean GHQ score in the sample is higher than 2.70 (Goldberg et al., 1998).In Sample 1, the mean GHQ score is 2.84.However, for reasons of comparison with other studies on mental health in the university sector (see Table 2), we also include the GHQ3+ (presence of at least 3 symptoms) when calculating prevalence. Preliminary multigroup confirmatory factor analyses across both samples in our study attested to the stability of the measurement model underlying the GHQ.
What the sources say
- Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Goldberg et al., 1997 source
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
A claim is checked only against the cited paper’s full text, never its abstract, and none is available for its sources.
In the paper
“Prior research in the university sector has shown that work-life interference is high (e.g.Gmelch et al., 1984;Kinman and Jones, 2003;Fox et al., 2011;Sun et al., 2011)”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 2.3.2. Organizational context
What the sources say
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
What the paper did — it cites no source for this, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Table 5 reports the findings of analyses examining whether characteristics of the work and organizational context of PhD students in Flanders were associated with their mental health, while controlling for sociodemographic characteristics.”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 4. Results
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim.
What the paper did — it cites no source for this, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Cronbach's alpha for this scale was 0.92.”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 3.3.3. Organizational context
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“A higher number of PhD students for each advisor could imply that faculty may find it more difficult to invest sufficient time and attention in each PhD student.”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 5.4. Policy implications
hedgedconditional- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: fails — The paper may give no reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it. The paper may give no reason why it holds.
In the paper
“In contrast, governmental research policies that allow advisors to invest in developing an inspirational influence towards their PhD students could buffer against stress (LePine et al., 2016).”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 5.4. Policy implications
What the sources say
- Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites LePine et al., 2016 source
hedgedconditional- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: fails — It may be too vague to check against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. It may be too vague to check against evidence. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
What the paper did — it cites no source for this, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“The adjusted RR statistically corrects for age and gender differences across samples.”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 3.4. Analytical strategy
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim.
In the paper
“Stephan and Levin (2001) have shown that such a situation not only impacts mental health, but weakens the implicit psychological contract between PhD students and the research team in which they are doing their research, thus directly affecting research performance.”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 5.4. Policy implications
What the sources say
- Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Stephan and Levin (2001) source
boosteddirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it. It may state two separate claims as one.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Our analyses suggest that universities will benefit in terms of PhD students' mental health when they facilitate management of work-family balance and workload, design open decision-making procedures, and help PhD supervisors to adopt leadership styles that lead to satisfactory and constructive work relations.”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 5.4. Policy implications
hedgedconditional- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: fails — It may be too vague to check against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. It may be too vague to check against evidence. It may state two separate claims as one.
A claim is checked only against the cited paper’s full text, never its abstract, and none is available for its sources.
In the paper
“Studies in other countries have shown that financial worries and debts are one of the major stressors experienced by those working towards a PhD (Biron et al., 2008;El-Ghoroury et al., 2012).”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 5.3. Limitations and alternative explanations
What the sources say
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
In the paper
“The GHQ4+ is a probabilistic measurement for psychiatric caseness, and advises medical attention to be sought for the reported problems (McDowell, 2006).”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 5.3. Limitations and alternative explanations
What the sources say
- Not matchedcites McDowell, 2006
Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it. It may state two separate claims as one.
- Not matched
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Furthermore, given the international orientation of the academic work environment, with high mobility of researchers across countries, we would expect that research organization factors rapidly spread across the globe, thus making the PhD experience in all probability comparable across countries.”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 5.3. Limitations and alternative explanations
hedgeddirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: fails — The paper may give no reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it. The paper may give no reason why it holds. It may state two separate claims as one.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“However, the vast number of studies examining causal links between organizational factors and the onset of mental health problems in occupational health research in other settings suggests that the work environment is at least partially responsible for the prevalence of mental health problems observed in the current study.”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 5.3. Limitations and alternative explanations
hedgedconditional- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: fails — The paper may give no reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it. The paper may give no reason why it holds.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Similarly, an increase in the number of PhD students versus stability in the number of faculty positions may give graduating PhD students bleak career prospects, in which supply exceeds demand for professionals with a PhD.”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 5.4. Policy implications
hedgedconditional- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: fails — The paper may give no reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it. The paper may give no reason why it holds.
In the paper
“Work-life interface was measured using the two widely adopted scales of family-work conflict (5 items) and work-family conflict (5 items) developed by Netemeyer et al. (1996).”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 3.3.3. Organizational context
What the sources say
- Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Netemeyer et al., 1996 source
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
What the paper did — it cites no source for this, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Cronbach's alpha was 0.91 for the life-work conflict scale and 0.93 for the work-life conflict scale.”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 3.3.3. Organizational context
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it. It may state two separate claims as one.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Our findings also suggest that universities might benefit from offering PhD students clear and full information on job expectations and career prospects, both in and outside academia.”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 5.4. Policy implications
hedgedconditional- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: fails — It may be too vague to check against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. It may be too vague to check against evidence.
In the paper
“For instance, a gradual increase in governmental research investments in the number of PhD scholarships and financial incentives for universities to increase the number of PhDs could have unforeseen side effects (see Fig. 1).”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 5.4. Policy implications
What the sources say
- Not matchedcites Fig. 1
Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.
hedgedconditional- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: fails — It may be too vague to check against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. It may be too vague to check against evidence. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Not matched
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“As financial worries and debts are probably not a crucial issue for PhD students in Flanders, if anything, we would expect that the prevalence of mental health problems is even higher in those countries where PhD candidates have more financial difficulties.”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 5.3. Limitations and alternative explanations
hedgedcorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: fails — The paper may give no reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it. The paper may give no reason why it holds. It may state two separate claims as one.
- Rests on an assumption: Most PhD students in Flanders receive a scholarship or are formally employed by a university.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Fourth, our study extends previous research on mental health in the sector by considering work-life conflict bi-directionally and by adding data on future career prospects to a series of well-known organizational stressors found in the work environment.”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 5.1. Contributions
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
What the paper did — it cites no source for this, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“It could be that our findings are idiosyncratic to the Flemish academic landscape.”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 5.3. Limitations and alternative explanations
hedged- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
The paper relies on this without support.
The sample of 3659 PhD students in Flanders, Belgium is representative of the population of PhD students in Flanders.
“a representative sample of PhD students in Flanders, Belgium (N = 3659)”
The paper relies on this without support.
The comparison groups (highly educated general population, highly educated employees, higher education students) are comparable to PhD students for the purpose of comparing mental health prevalence.
“we compare PhD students to three other samples: (1) highly educated in the general population (N = 769); (2) highly educated employees (N = 592); and (3) higher education students (N = 333).”
The paper relies on this without support.
Official registration of both staff and student mental health problems by universities is relatively low.
“Official registration of both staff and student mental health problems (e.g.depression, anxiety, burnout or emotional exhaustion) by universities is relatively low, which seems to be in stark contrast with the picture painted in media reports.”
The paper relies on this without support.
Previous research on well-being and mental health in academia has usually been restricted to one specific discipline or university.
“Previous research on well-being and mental health in academia has usually been restricted to one specific discipline or university.”
The paper relies on this without support.
Most PhD students in Flanders receive a scholarship or are formally employed by a university.
“Most PhD students in Flanders receive a scholarship or are formally employed by a university.”
The paper relies on this without support.
The diagnosis as to whether an individual actually has a clinically significant disorder must be assessed by psychiatric interview.
“The diagnosis as to whether an individual actually has a clinically significant disorder must be assessed by psychiatric interview.”
The paper relies on this without support.
In the long run, mental health problems in PhD students will impact on research itself.
“In the long run, however, it will also impact on research itself.”
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
The source backs part of the claim, not all of it — or backs it for a different population, condition or comparison.
In the citing paper
“Burnout among trainees is characterized by persistent mental exhaustion, a diminished sense of personal accomplishment, significant financial strain, and pervasive uncertainty about long‐term career viability [3].”
From Bridging the Gap Between Training and Reality: A Dental Scientist Trainee Perspective (2026) · cites this paper as [3]
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe source backs part of the claim, not all of it — or backs it for a different population, condition or comparison.
In the citing paper
“ECRs cite a range of structural and individual stressors, such as short-term employment contracts and related job insecurity, high competition, perceived isolation, feeling like an impostor, lack of feedback and power abuse as contributors to poor mental health12–18.”
From Prevalence and severity of mental health problems in early-career researchers: a systematic review and meta-analysis (2026) · cites this paper as [13]
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe cited source says what the claim attributes to it.
In the citing paper
“Levecque et al. (2017), for example, have suggested strong links between a lack of the leadership supervisory style and mental health issues in doctoral students.”
From The supervisory relationship as a predictor of mental health outcomes in doctoral students in the United Kingdom (2024) · cites this paper as Levecque et al., 2017
In the citing paper
“Doctoral students and postdoctoral researchers share many of these challenges, though some stressors may be more pronounced in doctoral students (for example, supervisor dependency, thesis progress pressure, financial strain and impostor feelings)2,13,14”
From Prevalence and severity of mental health problems in early-career researchers: a systematic review and meta-analysis (2026) · cites this paper as [13]
In the citing paper
“More specifically, an inspirational leadership was negatively associated with psychological distress and risk of experiencing a common psychiatric disorder (i.e., anxiety, depression, social withdrawal, and somatic symptoms), whereas a laissez-faire leadership style was positively associated with psychological distress.”
From The supervisory relationship as a predictor of mental health outcomes in doctoral students in the United Kingdom (2024) · cites this paper as Levecque et al. (2017)
In the citing paper
“They found that doctoral students were significantly more likely to be at risk of having or developing a common psychiatric disorder, with a particularly high risk for depression.”
From The supervisory relationship as a predictor of mental health outcomes in doctoral students in the United Kingdom (2024) · cites this paper as Levecque et al. (2017)
In the citing paper
“The doctorate process has been implicated in the onset and exacerbation of mental health problems and reduction of wellbeing (Berry et al., 2020; Friedrich et al., 2023; Levecque et al., 2017).”
From The supervisory relationship as a predictor of mental health outcomes in doctoral students in the United Kingdom (2024) · cites this paper as Levecque et al., 2017
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
Each contradiction between two passages listed here was confirmed by an independent check.
Rated minor: it would not touch a result — a value no result rests on, a p-value that stays on the same side of the significance level, or a conflict that is clerical, resolved elsewhere in the paper, or outside its own findings.
In the paper
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 3.3.1. Mental health problems
“The 12 GHQ items are presented in Table 3.”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 5.4. Policy implications
“Table: 3 Table 3 Characteristics of PhD students, Flanders 2013 (N = 3659): percentage (%), mean (M), standard deviation (SD), minimum-maximum (Min-Max).”
Rated minor: it would not touch a result — a value no result rests on, a p-value that stays on the same side of the significance level, or a conflict that is clerical, resolved elsewhere in the paper, or outside its own findings.
In the paper
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > Differences
“As for the GHQ4+, results from the U.K. vary from 31.8% in a study of lecturers and senior lecturers (McClenahan et al., 2007) to 41.8% in academic employees (Kinman and Jones, 2008).”
§ Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students > 2.3. Work organization and mental health problems in universities
“Kinman (2008) Work stressors, health and sense of coherence in UK academic employees UK academics Cross-sectional study.Random sample of 1000 UK academic employees working full time 465 47% 59% male Mean age 46y / / 43.4%”
Citations
Cites
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“Job control on the other hand, refers to control over the work environment, more specifically over the pace of work, the timing of breaks, or the use of skills (Karasek and Theorell, 1990).”
BackgroundPerceived organizational support: a review of the literature.
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The Validity of Two Versions of the GHQ in the WHO Study of Mental Illness in General Health Care
GOLDBERG, D. P., GATER, R., SARTORIUS, N., USTUN, T. B., PICCINELLI, M., GUREJE, O., & RUTTER, C. (1997) · Psychological Medicine · doi:10.1017/s0033291796004242 · Cited by 3,657 · cited 1×
“The literature reports substantial variation in the minimum number of symptoms to be considered (Goldberg et al., 1997).”
BackgroundThe detection of psychiatric illness by questionnaire
Levy, R. (1973) · Journal of Psychosomatic Research · doi:10.1016/0022-3999(73)90039-1 · Cited by 2,707
Logistic Regression Using the SAS System : Theory and Application
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“Given the compelling evidence for the effects of mental health problems on individuals’ research output (Danna and Griffin, 1999), it is to be expected that a sizable cohort of PhD students suffering from mental health problems may affect the overall quality and quantity of individuals’ research output.”
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Glasby, K., Leslie, R., & Fanshawe, M. (2025) · The Australian Educational Researcher · doi:10.1007/s13384-025-00816-6
“These results were ech-oed by Levecque et al. (2017), who examined the mental health of doctoral students in Belgium (n = 3659) and found 32% of doctoral students had, or showed risk of, major mental health conditions such as depression, while 1 in 3 doctoral students had experienced psychological…”
Finkielsztein, M. (2025) · Wiley eBooks · doi:10.1002/9781394253364.ch4
PhD Progress and Transfer Vivas at Universities in the United Kingdom
van Teijlingen, A., Harvey, O., Marmion, V., et al. (2024) · Journal of Education and Research · doi:10.51474/jer/16196
“Despite previous studies highlighting that poor supervision and a lack of expertise on the part of the supervisory team can negatively impact student wellbeing (Casey et al., 2022; Devine & Hunter, 2017; Levecque et al., 2017), the departmental consensus was to proceed to the confirmation review.”
Why Mental Health Literacy Can Improve STEM
Pester, C. W., Lieb, K., & Schäfer, S. K. (2025) · Angewandte Chemie · doi:10.1002/ange.202424871
Creating a supportive academic culture by preventing and responding to transgressive behavior
Bossche, T. V. D., Bostyn, D. H., Backere, F. D., et al. (2025) · Nature Mental Health · doi:10.1038/s44220-025-00409-3
Fostering Student Success Through Effective Mentorship
Moreno, R., Wood, J., & Flood, L. D. (2025) · Impacting Education Journal on Transforming Professional Practice · doi:10.5195/ie.2025.488
“Each of the mentors also worked hard to create an atmosphere of support and engaged presence (Levecque et al., 2017) that included being responsive to their mentees either in reference to their life challenges or their academic progress and establishing a sense of belonging.”
InfluentialSororidad rota: ¿la academia patriarcal puede tener rostro femenino?
California, U. A. D. B., Rivas, D., & Ibarra, F. D. B. (2025) · doi:10.61728/ae24004114
Can Program Structure Advance Equity in Graduate Education?
Wu, J., Guzman, L., Patt, C., Eppig, A., & Mendoza‐Denton, R. (2025) · Innovative Higher Education · doi:10.1007/s10755-025-09808-x · Cited by 2
Bastola, S., & Adhikari, S. (2025) · Research Square · doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-6675109/v1 · Cited by 1
A systematic review of stress reduction interventions among graduate students
Vasudevan, V., Hanson, B., Gittings, L., Minda, J. P., & Irwin, J. D. (2025) · Journal of American College Health · doi:10.1080/07448481.2025.2503827 · Cited by 1
How to study for a PhD, survive, and even enjoy it
Lin, C.-P., & Lowers, J. (2025) · doi:10.1093/9780191924644.003.0032
Data from the Researcher Mental Health Observatory STAIRCASE Survey
Lasser, J., Mol, S. T., Čontala, A., Slavec, A., de Swarte, A. Z., Khachatryan, A., Eleuteri, A. M., Haque, A., Jansone, B., Vrenozi, B., et al. (2026) · Journal of Open Psychology Data · doi:10.5334/jopd.136 · Cited by 2
Adversity Quotient and Suicidal Ideation Among LGBTQIA++ College Students
MOLINA, M. J. B. (2025) · AIDE Interdisciplinary Research Journal · doi:10.56648/aide-irj.v11i1.175
Storti, B. C., Sinval, J., Munro, Y. L., Medina, F. J., & Sticca, M. G. (2025) · MethodsX · doi:10.1016/j.mex.2025.103433 · Cited by 1
“…such as investigations that explored how doctoral students experience research supervision and its impact on their mental health and wellbeing [ 12 ], as well as those that assessed the organizational factors relating to the role of doctoral students that predict mental health status [ 20 ].”
Grieving away from home: international bereaved graduate students’ grief experiences
Akmese, I., & Foreman, T. (2025) · Mortality · doi:10.1080/13576275.2025.2524722
Fostering Dissertation Motivation
John, G., & Wani, M. A. (2025) · IGI Global eBooks · doi:10.4018/978-1-6684-4905-9.ch007
Frantz, F. (2025) · Minerva · doi:10.1007/s11024-025-09588-w
“3), an observation that is well supported by recent mental health statistics of early-stage researchers (Levecque et al. 2017).”
Controlling or Directing? Text Mining to Decode Supervisor-Graduate Student RelationshipPreprint
Yin, M., Xu, W. Z., & Wang, Y. (2025) · SSRN Electronic Journal · doi:10.2139/ssrn.5362328
The Emotional Climate of Academia: Exploring Social Media Data as an Indicator of Well-Being
Müller, S. M., & Bittermann, A. (2025) · Journal of Happiness Studies · doi:10.1007/s10902-025-00902-7 · Cited by 1
“These stressors, including high academic demands and expectations (Levecque et al., 2017), negotiating constructive relationships with super-visors and collaborators (French & Kendall, 2017), and financial concerns (Metcalfe et al., 2018), are not confined to specific career stages.”
Doctoral Supervision in Sport Psychology
Lautenbach, F., Elbe, A., Müller, J., Praisan, G., Pizzera, A., & Lohmann, J. (2025) · Journal of Applied Sport and Exercise Psychology · doi:10.1026/2941-7597/a000050
Gender differences in quality of life among research scholars: A comparative study
Singh, P., & Saraswat, S. (2025) · International Journal of Physiology Nutrition and Physical Education · doi:10.22271/journalofsport.2025.v10.i2a.3070
Leading Practices to Safeguard the Mental Health of Investigators and Trainees in Research Teams
Corrente, M., Atanackovic, J., Simkin, S., et al. (2025) · NEW SOLUTIONS A Journal of Environmental and Occupational Health Policy · doi:10.1177/10482911251362477
Mamun, M. A., Huraira, M. A., Begum, M., Hasan, M. H., Khan, M. M., Faruk, M. O., Kibria, M., Aktar, S., Muntashir, N., Das, P., et al. (2025) · International Journal of Social Psychiatry · doi:10.1177/00207640251358085 · Cited by 1
“PhD students are 2.43 times more likely to develop psychiatric disorders compared to the highly educated general population, 2.84 times more likely than highly educated employees, and 1.85 times higher than in higher education students (Levecque et al., 2017).”
InfluentialShaping Engineering Doctoral Education for the 21st-Century Knowledge Production
Freitas, A., Veiga, A., & Pêgo, J. P. (2025) · International Conference of the Portuguese Society for Engineering Education (CISPEE) · doi:10.1109/cispee64787.2025.11123930
“Furthermore, as authors point out that half of doctoral candidates experience psychological distress [32, 33], it is suggested that training and testing these competencies during the doctoral path can also lead to improved well-being and mental health, promote timely completion, reduce attrition…”
Sims, R. J., Brewer, S., Fender, L., et al. (2025) · ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition · doi:10.18260/1-2--57047
Aristeidou, M., & Aristidou, A. (2024) · doi:10.64628/ade.qcj4xguc4
Coronavirus halted years of research and Canada needs a strategy to fight back
Berdahl, L., Young, L., & Malloy, J. (2020) · doi:10.64628/aam.h6etu67dx
PhD Students’ Perceptions and Strategies For Managing Stress During Their PhD Studies
Stojadinović, A. M., Stošić, A. S., Đukić, T. M., Mitić, I. T., Cvetković, B. N., & Marković, S. (2025) · International Journal of Cognitive Research in Science Engineering and Education · doi:10.23947/2334-8496-2025-13-2-257-272 · Cited by 1
Nefzi, N., & Toumi, M. (2025) · Revue française des affaires sociales · doi:10.3917/rfas.252.0175
Lane, J., Mansali, S. A. E., & Lachance, A. (2025) · Revue internationale de pédagogie de l’enseignement supérieur · doi:10.4000/14kwd
The Erosion of Research Integrity: Crises, Pseudoscience, and the Illusion of Progress
Yüksel, A. (2025) · CABI eBooks · doi:10.1079/9781800628076.0003
Berkemeier, L., Kamphuis, W., Oldenhuis, H. K. E., Verdaasdonk, R. M., & van Gemert‐Pijnen, J. E. W. C. (2025) · doi:10.2196/preprints.84554
Between the pages: a qualitative inquiry into researcher wellbeing
Özel, D., & Barkçin, M. (2025) · Higher Education Research & Development · doi:10.1080/07294360.2025.2552321
“This aligns with research suggesting that while gender can shape specific experiences the broader stressors of academia, such as the ‘publish or perish’ culture, workload intensification, and hierarchical barriers, are often experienced universally across genders (Gill, 2013; Levecque et al., 2017).”
Sangaroon, P., Kanjanaprakorn, O., Prasertchai, A., & Nakpan, W. (2025) · Journal of Health Research · doi:10.56808/2586-940x.1158
Programas de Doctorado en Educación: Retos, Avances y Perspectivas Internacionales
Soto, V. R., Ruiz, G. C., & Doménech, M. J. G. (2025) · European Public & Social Innovation Review · doi:10.31637/epsir-2025-2491
Lui, J. M., Corrêa, M. P. A., Planthold, T., et al. (2025) · STUDIES IN HEALTH SCIENCES · doi:10.54022/shsv6n3-079
Pandey, A., Mishra, A. A., Maheshwari, M., & Pandey, J. (2025) · Studies in Higher Education · doi:10.1080/03075079.2025.2571880
Handl, F., Schulte, E.-M., & Kauffeld, S. (2025) · European Journal of Higher Education · doi:10.1080/21568235.2025.2576229
“In recent years, the knowledge-intensive university environment, in which academics operate, has undergone significant transformations, including a much larger number of early-career researchers and increased competition (Levecque et al. 2017).”
Subburayan, B., Sridevi, M., Krishnaveni, N., Mohan, C., Kumar, S., Sandhya, D., Vinod, P., & Kurup, R. R. (2025) · IGI Global eBooks · doi:10.4018/979-8-3373-0928-6.ch004
The Impact of Mental Health on Higher Education Academics
Gonzo, F. C. (2025) · IGI Global eBooks · doi:10.4018/979-8-3373-0928-6.ch011
Orsini, J. M. (2024) · Emerald Group Publishing Limited eBooks · doi:10.1108/979-8-88730-852-420251014
CAN VOICE-ACTIVATED AI ASSISTANTS IMPROVE COMPLETION RATES AND HEALTH AMONG PHD CANDIDATES?
Krumsvik, R. J. (2026) · EDULEARN proceedings · doi:10.21125/edulearn.2026.0333
Zhang, T., Li, T., Pan, M.-Y., Jia, S.-R., Wang, Q., Ma, H.-L., & Li, H. (2025) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1661608
Intolerance of Uncertainty in Young Researchers: A Qualitative Study
Kaya, Y., Satıcı, S. A., Kütük, H., Satıcı, B., & Deniz, M. E. (2025) · Abant İzzet Baysal Üniversitesi Eğitim Fakültesi Dergisi · doi:10.17240/aibuefd.2025..-1698610
“…with previous literature suggesting that young researchers often experience psychological distress due to a range of uncertainty-related factors, such as precarious contracts, publication pressure, and institutional ambiguity (Levecque et al., 2017; Berry et al., 2021; Kismihók et al., 2022).”
InfluentialJohnson, G. U. (2025) · Journal of Advanced Nursing · doi:10.1111/jan.70421
“This aligns with broader evidence that doctoral productivity depends not only on individual effort but also on the structural protection of research time within health systems (Levecque et al. 2017; Aspinall et al. 2024).”
The Human Infrastructure of Open Science: Why Mentorship Matters More Than Ever
Sánchez-Núñez, P. (2025) · doi:10.54900/d4erg-z9z03
The Human Infrastructure of Open Science: Why Mentorship Matters More Than Ever
Sánchez-Núñez, P. (2025) · doi:10.59350/evw3g-73v78
Turning Intersectionality on Its Head: The Hidden Voices of Early Career Researchers in Europe
Showunmi, V., & Külcür, R. (2025) · IntechOpen eBooks · doi:10.5772/intechopen.1012692
den Bakker, C. R., Ommering, B. W. C., de Beaufort, A. J., et al. (2024) · Figshare · doi:10.6084/m9.figshare.26682724
den Bakker, C. R., Ommering, B. W. C., de Beaufort, A. J., et al. (2024) · Figshare · doi:10.6084/m9.figshare.26682727
Abousoliman, A. D., Ibrahim, A. M., Abualruz, H., Magdi, H. M., Zaghamir, D. E. F., Alhowimel, A., El‐Monshed, A. H., El-Gazar, H. E., & Zoromba, M. A. (2024) · Figshare · doi:10.6084/m9.figshare.26713876
Teepe, G. W., Lukic, Y. X., Kleim, B., Jacobson, N. C., Schneider, F., Santhanam, P., Fleisch, E., & Kowatsch, T. (2024) · Figshare · doi:10.6084/m9.figshare.26599091
Between utopias and realities: Reclaiming doctoral education as a practice of freedom
Cardoso, S. (2025) · Policy Futures in Education · doi:10.1177/14782103251413663
“The psychic toll of this acceleration manifests in widespread anxiety, impostor syndrome, and burnout, now recognised as endemic to graduate education (Evans et al., 2018; Levecque et al., 2017).”
Examining the Relationship Between Digital Addiction and Anxiety Among Academics
YİĞİT, A. G., & Can, Y. (2026) · Osmangazi Journal of Educational Research · doi:10.59409/ojer.1719945
Garcia, M. B. (2026) · Journal of Further and Higher Education · doi:10.1080/0309877x.2026.2614014
“In contrast, the most prominent external factors were personal and social lives (Levecque et al. 2017), financial opportunities (Nabolsi, Abu-Moghli, and Khalaf 2014), departmental support and socialisation (Dericks et al. 2019), and supervision (Gube et al. 2017).”
Exploring the Role of a Sense of Belonging for Sport Management Faculty Well-Being and Retention
Miller, J. J., Gregg, E. A., Lee, J., & Pascal, A. (2026) · Sport Management Education Journal · doi:10.1123/smej.2025-0001
Academic Development and Career Plans of Teaching and Research Staff Across Different Age Groups
Efimova, G. Z. (2026) · THE KAZAN SOCIALLY-HUMANITARIAN BULLETIN · doi:10.26907/2079-5912.2025.4.22-34
Khalid, H., & Porta, S. D. (2026) · Research Square · doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-8623105/v1
Zhang, J., Wu, P., Chen, W., & Fang, F. (2026) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1747603 · Cited by 1
Laurent, N. F., Martin, S. R., & Lefevre, M. A. (2024) · Annals of Organizational Culture Leadership and External Engagement Journal · doi:10.51847/zl2usyrrqe
Bahnson, M., & Abane, T. (2026) · Frontiers in Education · doi:10.3389/feduc.2026.1770054 · Cited by 2
Who Is (Not) Under Stress? A Comparison of Doctoral Students’ Effort–Reward Profiles
Vilser, M., Hommelhoff, S., & Mausz, I. (2026) · Zeitschrift für Arbeits- und Organisationspsychologie A&O · doi:10.1026/0932-4089/a000463
Wildfire research and mental health: impacts, reflections, and a call to action
Dickson‐Hoyle, S., Santana, F. N., Szostak, C., & Oelke, N. D. (2026) · Fire Ecology · doi:10.1186/s42408-025-00434-8
“…students, early career researchers, and non-tenured faculty, who disproportionately experience psychological distress and mental health concerns due to factors such as financial and job insecurity and academic pressures of productivity (Levecque et al. 2017), may also be particularly susceptible.”
The Human Infrastructure of Open Science: Why Mentorship Matters More Than Ever
Sánchez-Núñez, P. (2025) · doi:10.54900/evw3g-73v78
The Perfectionist’s Dilemma in Sport and Performance Psychology Graduate Trainees
Johnson, K., & Steinfeldt, J. A. (2026) · Health · doi:10.4236/health.2026.182010
Grit as a Key Factor in PhD Students’ Work Engagement and Burnout
Lillelien, K., Menichelli, E., & Bjaalid, G. (2026) · Social Sciences · doi:10.3390/socsci15020120 · Cited by 1
“Age has been found to be a significant factor in the risk of interruption of a Ph.D. (González-Betancor and Dorta-https González 2020) but not in other studies (e.g., Levecque et al. 2017).”
InfluentialPuente, I. A., Tipi, N. S., O’Connor, G., O’Dell, L., Bowes-Catton, H., & Luck, R. (2026) · Studies in Higher Education · doi:10.1080/03075079.2026.2628875
The national survey of academic researchers: New facts and data
Myers, K. R., Tham, W. Y., Thursby, J. G., Thursby, M., Cohodes, N., Lakhani, K. R., Mural, R., & Xu, Y. (2026) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0340642 · Cited by 10
Johnson, G. U., Thennakoon, S., KUMARAGE, M., TOUTOUNTZIS, E., & Whitehead, L. (2026) · Nurse Education in Practice · doi:10.1016/j.nepr.2026.104778
Mobilized academia: faculty research activities during wartime
Eckhaus, E., & Davidovitch, N. (2026) · Cogent Social Sciences · doi:10.1080/23311886.2026.2632991
The “Art” of Mentoring Otherwise: Troubling, Agitating and Flourishing in the Academy
Abernathy, L. P., Warner, S. L., & Bailey, L. (2026) · Emerald Group Publishing Limited eBooks · doi:10.1108/978-1-80592-833-120261003
Chen, X., Lei, H., Yuan, W., Fan, X., & Lei, C. (2026) · BMC Public Health · doi:10.1186/s12889-026-26857-9 · Cited by 1
Neue Diskurse, veränderte Arbeitsbedingungen – aber weiterhin prekäre Lage
Dertinger, A., Weber, S., Elsner, A., et al. (2026) · MedienPädagogik Zeitschrift für Theorie und Praxis der Medienbildung · doi:10.21240/mpaed/00/2026.03.02.x
“Hohe Anforderungen im Arbeitsumfeld gehen auf der anderen Seite mit einem höheren Risiko für psychische Belastungen einher (Levecque et al. 2017, 877).”
Learning From Failure for Doctoral Education
Stracke, E., Webb, J., Holbrook, A., Burke, R., & Kumar, V. (2026) · Higher Education Quarterly · doi:10.1111/hequ.70114
Fieldwork in flux: Injury, disruption and the case for flexibility in research design
Turner, S., & Slack, P. (2026) · Qualitative Research · doi:10.1177/14687941261430615
Salman, A. M. (2026) · Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science · doi:10.1007/s12124-026-09985-0
“But the initial motivation kept me in motion (Levecque et al., 2017 ).”
Sasvári, P., & Hajdú, N. (2026) · IEEE World Symposium on Applied Machine Intelligence and Informatics (SAMI) · doi:10.1109/sami68106.2026.11420651
“Loss of status can trigger stress, burnout and depression experiences to academic mobbing, long-term psychological stress, isolation and declining performance [9, 10], while from 2024 and 2025 highlight that "academic mobbing" hierarchical research cultures often targets participation.”
Kokotsaki, D. (2026) · Journal of Further and Higher Education · doi:10.1080/0309877x.2026.2642269
Jia, W., & Boo, H. S. (2026) · International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-Being · doi:10.1080/17482631.2026.2645256 · Cited by 2
“This combination of responsibilities regularly leads to psychological fatigue and role overload (Burke, 2013; Levecque et al., 2017).”
InfluentialRajyasree, A., Mufina Begam, J., Mohan, S., & Anandhi, E. D. (2026) · Global Journal of Guntur Medical College · doi:10.25259/gjgmc_8_2026
L’expérience doctorale : stress, santé, relation d’encadrement
Haag, P. (2018) · theses.fr (ABES) · doi:10.70675/b74e2e85zf636z4df6z9b0ez538c5f963876
Évaluation du stress au travail et méthodes de prévention
Chang, B. (2018) · theses.fr (ABES) · doi:10.70675/961d8e74z4ee5z4d62z8dbbz2bf57be1c252
The cognition of auditory smiles : a computational approach
Arias, P. (2018) · theses.fr (ABES) · doi:10.70675/39621da1z3127z4638z9350zd37bc3c74e2f
“impostor syndrome or mental health problems) in today’s highly competitive academic culture (Levecque et al., 2017; Hubel, 2009).”
BackgroundEmotions et personnalité : au cœur des décisions chez un poisson monogame
Laubu, C. (2018) · theses.fr (ABES) · doi:10.70675/abcdc27fz30c9z4c1cz86e5z65821c7e749a
“On parle régulièrement des difficultés et du mal-être des thésards (Levecque et al. 2017), ce problème mériterait une vraie réflexion sur les moyens à mettre en œuvre pour y remédier et réduire le nombre d’abandons de thèse en cours de route.”
From Struggle to Resistance : An Ethnography of Feminist Unionizing in Barcelona
Tatić, A. (2024) · theses.fr (ABES) · doi:10.70675/0b1b409aza4b7z4720z89d0zed67b65051f2
Dietary adaptations in the genomes and microbiomes of convergent myrmecophagous mammals
Teullet, S. (2023) · theses.fr (ABES) · doi:10.70675/08ec5382z144ez4864zb18fz2a2e20b8539c
Why human connection is the true metric of research success
Tan, T. L. Y., Kon, M. W. R., Coumoul, X., & Fung, F. M. (2026) · FEBS Open Bio · doi:10.1002/2211-5463.70238
“This competitive environment has contributed to an epidemic of stress among junior researchers, leading to anxiety, depression, and burnout [31,32].”
When It Feels Like Nobody Cares
Benson, G. (2026) · IGI Global eBooks · doi:10.4018/979-8-2600-1096-9.ch008
Zheng, L. (2026) · British Educational Research Journal · doi:10.1002/berj.70168
Critical assessment of workplace accountability in the UK public sector
Agyekum‐Mensah, G., & Agyekum-Mensah, D. L. (2026) · Strategy and Leadership · doi:10.1108/sl-02-2026-0081
Zeinollakizi, M. (2026) · Frontiers in Education · doi:10.3389/feduc.2026.1743473 · Cited by 2
Tian, C., & Han, S. (2026) · Studies in Higher Education · doi:10.1080/03075079.2026.2658727
Las servidumbres de la excelencia: cuerpo, explotación y violencia en la universidad neoliberal
Pino, M. E. (2026) · Sociología Histórica · doi:10.6018/sh.669491
Waters, B., Heins, P., Heffernan, E., Wuestefeld, A., Shaaban, C. E., Smith, A. M., Folarin, R. O., & Bartels, S. L. (2026) · Alzheimer s & Dementia · doi:10.1002/alz.71364
“4,8 , and the impact of imposter syndrome in this sample was substantially more pronounced than in general academic populations.”
(2026) · IGI Global eBooks · doi:10.4018/979-8-3373-8830-4.ch011
(2026) · IGI Global eBooks · doi:10.4018/979-8-3373-8830-4.ch007
Metadata
- Authors
- Levecque, K., Anseel, F., De Beuckelaer, A., Van der Heyden, J., & Gisle, L.
- Affiliations
- Ghent University (BE)
- Institut Scientifique de Santé Publique (BE)
- Corresponding author
- Levecque, Katia
- Venue
- Research Policy
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2017-05
- Volume
- 46
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 868-879
- ISSN
- 0048-7333 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2595745805
- Cited by
- 1,182
- References
- 80
- Citations by year
- 2026: 141 · 2025: 120 · 2024: 166 · 2023: 153 · 2022: 163 · 2021: 141 · 2020: 131 · 2019: 93 · 2018: 58 · 2017: 16
- FWCI
- 131.66
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Research Policy (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Ghent University Academic Bibliography (Ghent University) (submittedVersion)
- Research Portal (King's College London) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Rare & Special e-Zone (The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology) (submittedVersion)
- Radboud Repository (Radboud University) (submittedVersion)
- SocArXiv (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion)
- SocArXiv (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion, public-domain)
- Funders
- Ministry of Work, Economy, Innovation and Sports
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Education › Doctoral Education Challenges and Solutions
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Student Stress and Coping
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Healthcare professionals’ stress and burnout
- Keywords
- doctoral students, mental health, work organization, academic working conditions, depression, job demands, job control, supervisor leadership, work-family interface, university students, highly educated employees
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