Everyone who has gone to grad school knows this, but we also recognize that this study was executed by grad students who just wanted to get through the next few years.
A study of Swedish PhD candidates has shown the vast toll that doctoral studies can take on mental health. The survey adds robust data to discussions about the mental-health crisis in academia. Studies and anecdotal evidence have long shown that PhD students can experience immense pressure to publish and to find funding and jobs in a brutally competitive landscape.
The analysis looked at the rates at which all Swedish PhD students were prescribed psychiatric drugs and were hospitalized for mental-health problems. It found that, on average, the longer they were doing doctoral studies, the more they needed to access such services. By the fifth year of studies, the likelihood that PhD candidates needed mental-health medications had increased by 40%, compared with the year before study (see ‘PhD pressures’).
I’ll admit that I had a relatively easy time in grad school — I had a good, supportive advisor, and I got through the whole program in five years, and also got support for 3 more years after completion. I knew of other faculty who were absolute monsters, neglectful and cruel, though, and even with a good advisor I felt the pressure of that rising curve. It’s interesting how quickly the curve drops after the fifth year. I wonder whether that’s because they had adapted to cynicism and despair, or because they’d found positions. Grad school ends, you know, and it ends with a sudden increase in the intensity of the experience, culminating in a defense that cleanly completes the process. I remember the relief of finally finishing.
I do wonder how grad school compares to the life of normies, though. I suspect that that transition from trainee to the workforce is difficult for everyone. Except med students?
The study found that uptake in medication varied across academic fields. Those in natural sciences saw a 100% increase by the fifth year compared with pre-PhD levels, whereas those in the humanities and social sciences saw 40% and 50% increases, respectively. Medical students didn’t see any uptick in prescriptions.
That last sentence is just weird. I’ve known med students, and the stresses are enormous. Is it that the med students have access to the dispensary and the good drugs, or that there is so much pressure on them to conceal their stress?