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Nationwide assessment of the mental health of UK Doctoral Researchers
Abstract
Doctoral Researchers (DRs) are an important part of the academic community and, after graduating, make substantial social and economic contributions. Despite this importance, DR wellbeing has long been of concern. Recent studies have concluded that DRs may be particularly vulnerable to mental health problems, yet direct comparisons of the prevalence of mental health problems between this population and control groups are lacking. Here, by comparing DRs with educated working controls, we show that DRs report significantly greater anxiety and depression, and that this difference is not explained by a higher rate of pre-existing mental health problems. Moreover, most DRs perceive poor mental health as a ‘normal’ part of the PhD process. Thus, our findings suggest a hazardous impact of PhD study on mental health, with DRs being particularly at risk of developing common mental health problems. This provides an evidence-based mandate for universities and funders to reflect upon practices related to DR training and mental health. Our attention should now be directed towards understanding what factors may explain heightened anxiety and depression among DRs so as to inform preventative measures and interventions.
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“Overall, 32 non-peer-reviewed records were included52,54,107,111,118,125,132,135,138,148,177,178,191,196,202,206–222.”
From Prevalence and severity of mental health problems in early-career researchers: a systematic review and meta-analysis (2026) · cites this paper as [138]
In the citing paper
“The results of our study were slightly higher in the anxiety sub-scale, with previous studies indicating a smaller proportion of participants in the severe and extremely severe anxiety categories (between 15 and 22%; Hazell et al., 2021; Milicev et al., 2021; Sideropoulos et al., 2022).”
From The supervisory relationship as a predictor of mental health outcomes in doctoral students in the United Kingdom (2024) · cites this paper as Hazell et al., 2021
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“Hazell et al. (2021) found that UK doctoral students report significantly greater clinically relevant (mild to severe) symptoms of depression and anxiety compared to educated age-matched control groups, even after controlling for pre-existing mental health problems.”
From The supervisory relationship as a predictor of mental health outcomes in doctoral students in the United Kingdom (2024) · cites this paper as Hazell et al. (2021)
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“Suicidality can broadly be conceptualised as thoughts (e.g. ideation) and action (e.g. planning and attempts) (Klonsky et al., 2016), and after examining full-scale scores we decided to carry out the additional item-level analysis.”
Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students
Levecque, K., Anseel, F., De Beuckelaer, A., Van der Heyden, J., & Gisle, L. (2017) · Research Policy · doi:10.1016/j.respol.2017.02.008 · Cited by 1,182 · cited 6×
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Sorted by citations
Mavrogalou-Foti, A. P., Kambouri, M. A., & Çili, S. (2024) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1437819 · Cited by 34
Dreisoerner, A., Goetz, V., Frohnmayer, D., Tran, U. S., Voracek, M., & Nater, U. M. (2026) · Nature Human Behaviour · doi:10.1038/s41562-026-02505-5 · Cited by 2
Metadata
- Authors
- Hazell, C. M., Niven, J. E., Chapman, L., Roberts, P. E., Cartwright-Hatton, S., Valeix, S., & Berry, C.
- Venue
- Humanities and Social Sciences Communications
- Published
- 2021-12-09
- Volume
- 8
- Issue
- 1
- ISSN
- 2662-9992
- Cited by
- 48
- References
- 6
- Language
- en
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