Wenn ihr am Wochenende noch was für die Ohren braucht: Hört rein wie Julian und @MarkusKL2 über #MentalHealth in der Wissenschaft und ihre eigenen Coping Strategien reden.

🎙 Neue #Podcast Folge: Mental Health 🆘 Warum kämpft ⅓ der PhDs mit hohem Depressionsrisiko? 🎧 Wir diskutieren Ursachen & Lösungen mit Julian und @MarkusKL2 von @SPI_tue ❤️ Braucht ihr Hilfe? Checkt die Links in den Shownotes! 🎧 Link https://t.co/QgR9uNPXam

If you need help because of mental health issues please check out this page or other resources: https://t.co/Xz6gEIHW79. 17/17

Feel free to reach out to us if you're an academic and want to talk about the academic system and help change it for the better! And if you're a PhD student from Tübingen and interested in sustainability-related topics, check out https://t.co/K4BZWtD4Uk. 16/

This work was an amazing interdisciplinary team effort by Julian Friedrich @anna_bareis @MoritzBross Zoe Bürger, Alvaro C. Rodriguez, @NinjaSophi @MarkusKL2 @CorSchroeder! 15/

Please fill free to tag more relevant stakeholders to help to spread the word! @uni_tue @GTC_Tue @LEAD_GradSchool @ml4science @mindfulsci_tue @academicvoices @MPI_IS @s4f_tuebingen @TueNeuroCampus @DKonvent_philUT @uni_tue_exstra 14/

With this research article, we want to raise awareness for the very important topic of mental health and well-being in academia. We provide data for the current situation and we’re still actively working on this on multiple levels. 13/

Our mental health is important and universities should make it a priority! Based on our data, additional offers for Ph.D. students, as well as their supervisors, should be created and existing ones sustainably modified. 12/

We discuss further ideas for changes on the individual, supervision, university and political level in our article… Have a look! 11/

Analyzing more than 1000 qualitative answers showed that supportive supervision, but also better working conditions, a manageable workload, and decreased pressure to perform could improve the situation of individual PhD students. 10/

This is particularly worrying as the academic system is hierarchically structured and PhD students are highly dependent on their supervisors. This points to one of the structural changes we need in academia! 9/

Reemerging motifs for the causes of stress were, besides the working conditions, the lack of adequate and high-quality supervision. Almost 20% felt mistreated more than “some of the time” and reported to meet his/her supervisor only once every 6 months or less. 8/

Stress The perceived stress of PhD students @uni_tue was much higher compared to a representative British sample and also compared to a German community sample. 7/

Especially paired with the general anxiety score, for which the mean of our participants was in the range of mild to moderate anxiety. 6/

Mental Health and Anxiety Applying the PHQ reveals that ~1/3 of participants were above the cut-off for major depression. While this self-assessment needs to be taken with care, it is an alarming number which needs follow-up investigations and monitoring. 5/

Job satisfaction scores were much lower compared to a German sample of workers in companies but also compared to a sample of PhD students from Belgium. Job insecurity scores were increased compared to the sample in German companies. 4/

Working Conditions Almost 1/3 of the participants of our study report to work more than 45h/week. Almost 2/3 were on temporary contracts with a mean contract duration of 34.4 months and >80% were worried about the lack of permanent or long-term contracts. 3/

Our work adds to a growing body of research suggesting that university environments can have a negative impact on academics' mental health. But let’s have a closer look. A 🧵: 2/

“How is your thesis going?” Our article is finally out @PLOSONE ! We investigate the mental health of 589 PhD students @uni_tue and reveal alarming numbers of peers with depressive and anxious tendencies. https://t.co/yXj7ZLsyQJ 1/17

and more ideas to come... stay tuned!