Thread by @leonardojo

(Thread) Hello everyone, I'm Leonardo Jo, a PhD Candidate at the Plant Biology Department (@ucdavisbiology). A couple of months ago, I asked the GRADUATE STUDENT community at @ucdavis to participate in an anonymous and voluntary survey about mental health and student well-being.

I'll show the preliminary results in this thread. If you have any comments or questions, please contact me ([e-mail]). I'm not an expert in the subject, so any help will be appreciated. Also, could you please retweet this so it will reach our graduate student community?

We had a total of 396 participants in the survey (Huge thanks to the Graduate Student community). Hopefully this survey can be used to promote change in the academic culture and enhance access of mental health services in our university.

This survey was part of my project in the Professors for the Future (PFTF) program, coordinated by @UCDavisGrad. The survey was based on a recent research article that evaluated the mental health of graduate students around the world (nature.com/articles/nbt.4…)

The results (1/10): According to the GAD7 and PHQ9 questionnaires, ~35% of graduate students who participated in the survey showed signs of moderate to severe anxiety and/or depression. This number is similar to the one found in Evans, et al 2018.

The results (2/10): The majority (71.5%) of graduate students who are showing signs of anxiety and/or depression believe that they don't have healthy Work/Life balance. This indicates that the perception of healthy work/life could be impacting the graduate student well-being.

The results (3/10): The majority of graduate students have a neutral to positive perception on their relationship with their PI (positive surprise!). However, ~20% of participants who experienced anxiety and/or depression perceive that they are not being valued by their PIs,

The results (4/10): When asked to list the topics that most affect their well-being, the most voted topic was "Research responsibilities or pressures". Surprisingly, IMPOSTER SYNDROME was the second most voted topic among participants, followed by Academic Performance.

After some research, I found that our university provides a weekly IMPOSTER SYNDROME RECOVERY (ISR) WORKSHOP that teaches strategies for combating these insecurities so that they can fully realize their academic and career aspirations. More information: signupgenius.com/go/5080f48a5a6…

The results (5/10): Around 40% of graduate students who are showing signs of anxiety and/or depression said that they never utilized the services provided on campus.

The results (6/10): When asked the reason why they haven't used them, the most voted category was "I don't have the time". In fact, many graduate students complained about not being able to schedule counseling services on campus after business hours (past 5PM).

However, I was informed that it is possible to schedule counseling services after business hours. Does that mean this information is not reaching our graduate student community?

Another interesting fact is that a significant number of participants selected “I don’t know if it would make a difference”, suggesting a certain disbelief in the services provided on campus. The result that I'll show next might help to break this perception.

The results (7/10): The majority of participants who used the mental health services on campus (~70%) believe that the services provided on campus were VERY HELPFUL or HELPFUL. This information could be used break the disbelief surrounding the services in our campus.

The results (8/10): The majority of participants is Satisfied or Neutral with university efforts to support graduate student well-being. However, ~25% of participants who experienced anxiety and/or depression believe that they are Unsatisfied or Very Unsatisfied. We can do more!

The results (9/10): Participants had a chance to leave their suggestions on how we can implement policies that can improve the well-being of graduate students. A total of 142 suggestions were submitted. The following topics were mentioned a number of times.

The results (10/10): This is still preliminary, so take it with a grain of salt. We could look for differences in the stress related sources that affects graduate students from distinct groups. Like for instance gender identities, years in grad school, domestic vs international.

I'm currently finishing the final report of the pilot survey. I will send it to leaderships in our graduate student community. I really hope that this pilot survey can contribute to promote discussions about the mental health condition of our graduate student community.

Again, please feel free to contact me anytime: [e-mail]
Thank you.
#MentalHealthAwarenessMonth #Mentalhealth #UCDAVIS #graduateschool
@ucdavis @UCDSHCS @UCDavisGrad @ucdavislife @UCDavisGSA @UCDGradPostdoc

Wow, thank you all for spreading the word. I'm glad people are willing to discuss about the issue.
I actually found a lot of spelling errors in the figures. They will be fixed in the final version of the report of the survey, I'll post the link later in the quarter, Thank you all

,@AcademicChatter @Ph_D_epression