After an earlier report that four out of ten UK students have mental issues (see VU International News & Reviews 105), now Nature/ biotechnology has published a much broader analysis of the Evidence for a mental health crisis in graduate education. Adding to earlier studies within single universities, the researchers used social media and direct email to survey 2279 graduate students (90% PhD, 10% Master’s) from 234 institutions in 26 countries.
NB Three Aurora universities were part of the study: Aberdeen, Grenoble, and Vrije Universiteit – albeit each with one student.
Their results show that graduate students are more than six times as likely to experience depression and anxiety as compared to the general population. Forty-one per cent of graduate students scored as having moderate to severe anxiety on the GAD07 scale as compared to 6% of the general population.
Of those who suffered from mental health issues, 50% did not feel supported by their supervisor!
