The cost of studying a doctorate is not measured only in time and money. It also has costs when it comes to mental health. According to the first longitudinal study, carried out in Sweden with data from 20,000 doctoral students who attended their universities in a decade, the consumption of psychiatric medications by these students increases on average by 40%. 13.5% of postgraduate students in the Scandinavian country used psychotropic drugs such as sedatives and antidepressants in 2016.
“The doctorate is certainly a stressful experience,” recognizes Carmen Simón Mateo, director of the postgraduate and specialization department of the CSIC. “Very good students come, with great enthusiasm. But a research project is not like studying. And for many it is the first contact with the scientific method: you have to go to a competitive agency to obtain a budget and in three years you have to have the results and publish them. And the better the journal in which they are published, the better valued it will be and the more possibilities of obtaining funding for another three years,” he adds.
Aftermath
The consumption of psychotropic drugs remains high several years after obtaining a doctorate
Carmen Simón Mateo, director of the postgraduate and specialization department of the CSIC
But also, “in order to accept the thesis, the university requires that the researcher have articles published in top-level journals, presence at conferences and demonstrate multidisciplinary training.” All of this requires time, he explains, “when many times the researcher formulates hypotheses that do not bear fruit and has to start over, which forces him to go against the clock.”
The study, carried out by researchers from the universities of Gothenburg and Stockholm, has analyzed the medical records of doctoral students between 2006 and 2017, and compared them with those of people with a similar profile who have a master’s degree.
The results have been published in the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) and collected by the journal Nature. They point out that “in the years prior to their doctoral studies,” the two groups consumed psychiatric medications at a similar rate. But the medication of researchers in training increases substantially from the start of the doctorate and “this upward trend continues over the course of doctoral studies, with estimates showing a 40% increase in the fifth year compared to previous levels ”.
Obtaining the degree represents a substantial improvement in life for these people, so that “after the fifth year, which represents the average duration of doctoral studies in our sample, we observed a notable decrease in the use of psychiatric medications.” However, the consumption of psychotropic drugs continues to be high 7 to 10 years after starting the doctorate. “It is a problem that we are beginning to be aware of and that is of great concern to all the institutions of the European Higher Space” recognizes Simón.
“We are suffocated by publicity and bureaucracy”
Rubén Barroso, doctoral student at IPNA-CSIC
Gourmet, doctoral student and professor at the University of La Laguna, Rubén Barroso points out that doctoral students have to research and teach, with the added pressure of “publicity: everything is based on producing a lot, rather than publishing quality articles.” . Although he himself is hired by the CSIC, he remembers that doctoral students always have to be linked to a university “and everything is enormously bureaucratized. It’s incredible how much time we spend filling out paperwork. And don’t forget a receipt, or miss a deadline, because they don’t notify you.” Lack of funds is another of the daily battles. “We charge the Minimum Interprofessional Wage, which is fair to live in some cities, but that money does not pay for the cost of the research.” Furthermore, payments are received late. “I am on an international stay, which I have been delaying because the aid that they have theoretically granted me did not arrive and in the end I have had to advance the money to be able to go.” He acknowledges that he has had to go to a psychologist. “My vocation would be to be a professor at a university, but there are days when I doubt that I will finish my doctorate or that so much effort will be worth it.”
Swedish researchers have carried out a collateral study that shows that studying a postgraduate degree has an impact on mental health even greater than that of the unexpected and sudden loss of a parent: people who suffered it increased their consumption of alcohol by 28%. psychotropic drugs, but this normalized and returned to the levels before the loss after two years.
The mental problems suffered by doctoral students are not minor: the study even detects an increase in hospitalizations for this cause, which exceeds 150% in the third year of studies, although starting from a very small prevalence.
The pressure on young researchers to find funding or publish their research within the required deadlines increases when the thesis reading approaches. At that time, many are subjected to the added pressure of deciding their career path (teaching or research) and looking for work at the end of their academic life. “Concerns about future employment or academic career prospects have a negative impact,” the study acknowledges: doctoral students who did not have them because they were hired by a company had a 28% lower risk of using psychotropic drugs than those who were employed by a company. university.
Profiles
The risk increases with age, and women have a prevalence that is 1.6 times higher
The risk of having high levels of stress that lead to needing medication is greater in those who begin their doctorate when they are over 31 years old, in women and in people who already had a history of using psychiatric medications. Thus, for those over 31 years of age, the risk of suffering serious mental problems is more than 1.5 times higher than that of those who begin their doctorate under 26 years of age, while the risk for women is 1.6 times higher. to that of men. For those who had already needed psychiatric medication in the previous years, the risk skyrocketed, to be 2.8 times higher than that of their peers without previous problems.
The researchers noted that mental problems increased in researchers from all sociodemographic backgrounds and from all disciplines except medicine. The greatest increases occurred in doctorates in natural sciences (the consumption of psychotropic drugs practically doubled) and in technology, with increases of 60%.
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The results from Sweden are similar to those obtained in other countries: in the United States they detected that the percentage of medicated students reached 14.9% among economic doctorates, and between 10 and 13.5% in political science students. In Spain, a survey carried out by the Center for Biomedical Research in Mental Health Network (CIBERSAM) among university students of all courses detected that 17% had been prescribed tranquilizers, anxiolytics, antidepressants or hypnotics.
Simón highlights that, despite this, the doctorates surveyed years later declare that they would repeat the doctorate again: 82% according to the AQU de Catalunya Survey with data from all universities and specialties. “The intellectual challenge, the satisfaction because it is the first time you discover something and the “soft” skills that are developed are appreciated by doctorates who consider that it makes them better in the academic world or in business even many years later.”
Students who had to resort to medication were more susceptible to abandoning their doctorate, so mental damage not only reduces academic productivity but causes a selection of researchers based on their mental resilience and not only their aptitude.
“Universities should offer us support to manage stress”
Juliette Bedrossiantz, PhD in Neuroscience and member of the IDAEA Young Researchers group
“You have finished your master’s degree and you are facing your first research project, and you also have to assume a large administrative and teaching burden, because doctoral students are tasked with supervising internships or seminars,” explains Juliette Bedrossiantz, already a doctorate, who points out that these challenges Added to this is managing your life in a new city, like Barcelona, with very little money and fitting in with a new team, “and at first cohabitation can be a big challenge.” Bedrossiantz recognizes that many of his colleagues have required psychological support and believes that universities and research centers should copy the initiatives of many companies that have people management strategies and accessories such as gyms. When the end of the doctorate approaches, stress comes when considering what to do when you finish. “If you want to continue researching and do a post-doctoral degree, you have to be willing to move around and that creates family conciliation problems, because stabilizing is complicated.”