Mental Health in Academia

Mental Health
in Academia
Peter Watson

Peter Watson, peter.watson@bristol.ac.uk
Newton Darwin Nightingale

Mental health in the general population
• In a given week, about 1 in 6 UK adults have a “common mental
disorder” (NHS, 2014). Most common:
“Not otherwise specified” 7.8%
Generalised anxiety disorder 5.9%
Depression 3.3%
Other common (phobias,
OCD, panic disorder)
4.3%

Anxiety and depression
• Generalised anxiety disorder - can include: uncontrollable worry about wide
range of situations (or none in particular); feeling anxious most days; for at least 6
months. Can induce wide range of physical symptoms.
• Depression: long-lasting or frequent symptoms such as low mood, hopelessness,
demotivation, lack of enjoyment, for at least 2 weeks.
• Medical disorders when causing distress and/or affecting daily life.
• Substantial contribution from both genetic and environmental factors.
• Some of the worst things that can happen to a person:
Happiness Research
Institute & Leaps by
Bayer (2020)

Why does academics’ wellbeing matter?
• Intrinsically important
• Crucial factor for a fair and just workplace
• Affects productivity
• Poor mental health in UK costs ~3-5% of GDP
(Stevenson/Farmer review, 2017).
• Disorders can produce demotivation and tiredness.
• Retention of excellent people
• Understanding of the issue is needed to inform career decisions

Mental health in early career researchers
• 24% of PhD students have depression and 17% have anxiety,
compared to ~6% in general population, from meta-analysis of
32 studies (Satinsky et al., 2021).
• >40% of postgrads report symptoms of depression or emotion or
stress-related problems (review by Guthrie et al., 2017).
• Scant research on postdocs.

Mental health in academic staff
• 53% of UK staff had score on wellbeing scale indicating “probable
depression”, compared to less than 15% of general population (Wray and
Kinman, 2021).
• Respondents primarily on permanent contracts (80%) and working
full-time (79%).
• ~60-70% response for each of rarely having energy to spare, rarely
feeling relaxed, feeling emotionally drained >=once per week, often
being too tired after work to do things they’d like to do.
• Worse scores for staff doing research and teaching than either alone.
• Russell Group scores slightly better than average.

• Reported levels of stressors similar to 2010 and 2014 surveys, and high
stress and low wellbeing consistently reported since at least the 1990s
(e.g. Kinman, 1998; Kinman et al., 2006; Kinman and Wray, 2013;
Guthrie et al., 2017).
• Worse scores than many other professions (Kinman et al., 2006;
Goodwin et al., 2013).
• Caveat – samples focussed on union members in many cases.
• At least two suicides have been attributed to university work pressure
(THE, 2018).
Mental health in academic staff

Primary drivers
• High workloads, balancing different responsibilities
• Balancing work and the rest of life
• Supervisor/manager relationships
• passive PhD supervision associated with higher risk (Levecque et al.,
2017)
• Personal harassment or bullying
• Imposter syndrome
• For students and ECRs:
• career instability and uncertainty
• positive perception of careers outside academia associated with lower
risk (Levecque et al., 2017)
• isolation
• finances
See e.g. Grady et al. (2014), Levecque et al. (2017),
Mackie and Bates (2019), Satinsky et al. (2021)

Improving your own situation
• Talk to supervisor/manager/peers/colleagues.
• Sleep, diet, exercise, breaks, hobbies, social network.
• Improving resilience:
• First thing - people should not be expected to need to go to greater
lengths than average.
• Meditation, mindfulness
• Medical help e.g.:
• self-help therapy, including e.g. cognitive behavioural therapy
• talking therapy (with trained therapist)
• medication
• Stigma against seeking help seems overestimated e.g. 59% of staff thought
they would be seen as weak for seeking help, but 94% said they would not
think less of someone for this (Wray and Kinman, 2021).

Some useful resources

Sources of support
• University e.g. counselling, employee assistance programmes,
harassment reporting.
• Colleagues/peers
• NHS (GP, 111, psychological therapy)
• Charities, including helplines:
• e.g. Mind, https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/guides-to-
support-and-services/;
• e.g. Samaritans e.g. 116 123.

Improving departments/universities
• Make targeting good mental health a part of the culture, alongside excellent research
and teaching.
• Consider impact on mental health as factor in decision-making
• Allocate time to manage the issue e.g. admin roles
• Pro-actively monitor the situation and look out for it worsening e.g. run surveys
• Strong anti-bullying/harassment policies
• Make workloads match individuals’ capacities
• Don’t presume helplessness
• Dedicated support for department
• For students:
• ensure engaged supervision
• improve career advice e.g. make clear academia is not the only good option
• perhaps improve social connections e.g. research group events

On the other hand...
• Remember there is high variability between individuals.
• Many flourish in academia.
• Also, there may be high variability between departments and research
groups – scrutinise those you apply to.
• Job satisfaction/reward scores in academic students and staff seem to be
more favourable (~50-70%) (Kinman, 1998; Shin and Jung, 2014; Nature,
2018; AdvanceHE, 2019).
• It’s possible to try it and see.
• Researching a variety of career options is wise (for everyone) – including
wellbeing.
• Don’t jump to conclusions based just on this talk!

Differences in perspectives
• Perceptions can have systematic errors and vary between individuals.
• Indicates perception formed by combining senses and mental models
(“representational realism”).

Data assimilation in the brain
• DA is a key part of climate science, to
estimate past states of the system.
• There is evidence the brain also
performs similar inference, and errors
may contribute to disorders (e.g. Smith
et al., 2021).
• Can be expected to be accurate when
there is good quality data (e.g. vision).
• But where there is little data, the result
could be very model-dependent (e.g.
“how is my research going?”, “what do
people think about me?”, “what will
my career be like?”).
• Perhaps some of reason why people
can experience academia very
differently?
Li et al. (2020)

Summary
• Mental health problems occur at a substantially higher rate in
academia than in the general population, both for PhD students
and staff.
• Key drivers to address include workloads, supervisor/manager
relationships, harassment, career uncertainty and isolation.
• There are numerous resources for individuals who need help.
• Departmental and university cultures should shift to include
achieving good mental health in students and staff as a key goal.

References
• AdvanceHE, 2019, Postgraduate Research Experience Survey, https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/knowledge-hub/postgraduate-research-experience-survey-2019
• Goodwin et al., 2013, Are Reports of Psychological Stress Higher in Occupational Studies? A Systematic Review across Occupational and Population Based Studies, PLoS
ONE 8:e78693. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0078693
• Grady et al., 2014, Betwixt and Between: The Social Position and Stress Experiences of Graduate Students. Teaching Sociology, 42, 5–16.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0092055X13502182
• Guthrie et al., 2017, Understanding mental healthin the research environment. RAND Europe.Happiness Research Institute & Leaps by Bayer, 2020, Wellbeing Adjusted Life
Years, Berlin: Leaps by Bayer.
• Kinman, G. 1998. Pressure Points: a survey into the causes and consequences of occupational stress in UK academic and related staff, London: Association of University
Teachers.
• Kinman and Wray, 2013, Higher Stress, University and College Union.
• Kinman et al., 2006, The Well-being of the UK Academy, 1998–2004, Quality in Higher Education, 12, 15-27,
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13538320600685081
• Levecque et al., 2017, Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students, Research Policy, 46, 868-879, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2017.02.008
• Mackie and Bates, 2019, Contribution of the doctoral education environment to PhD candidates’ mental health problems: a scoping review, Higher Education Research &
Development, 38, 565-578, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07294360.2018.1556620
• Nature, 2018, Satisfaction in science, https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07111-8
• NHS, 2014, Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey: Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing, England, 2014.
• Satinsky et al., 2021, Systematic review and meta-analysis of depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation among Ph.D. students. Sci Rep 11, 14370.
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-93687-7
• Shin and Jung, 2014, Academics job satisfaction and job stress across countries in the changing academic environments. High Educ 67, 603–620.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-013-9668-y
• Smith et al., 2021, Recent advances in the application of predictive coding and active inference models within clinical neuroscience. Psychiatry Clin. Neurosci., 75: 3-13.
https://doi.org/10.1111/pcn.13138
• Stevenson and Farmer, 2017, Thriving at work: The Stevenson/Farmer review of mental health and employers. Department for Work and Pensions and Department of
Health and Social Care.
• Times Higher Education, 2018, Lecturer's suicide a 'wake-up call' on overworking in academia, https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/lecturers-suicide-wake-call-
overworking-academia
• Wray and Kinman, 2021, Supporting Staff Wellbeing in Higher Education, Education Support. https://www.educationsupport.org.uk/media/x4jdvxpl/es-supporting-staff-
wellbeing-in-he-report.pdf

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