RESEARCH ARTICLE

REVIEW

Topic:
Work Organization and Mental Health Problem
in PHD students

Dated:
26 March 2018
 REVIEW
Work Organization and Mental Health
Problems in PHD Students:
Katia Levecque , Frederik Anseel , Alain De Beuckalear , John Van der Heyden and Lydia
Gisle are the researchers of Ghent University Belgium. They researched about the problems
related to Mental Health of PHD students. After the series of findings, they published their
result on 18 September 2015 and this research is accepted on 28 February 2017.

In the introductory paragraph of the research it tells us why there is a need to do research on
the mental health of PHD students. For which many journalist published their findings about
potential impact of research on the PHD students. For instance, in OECD Countries 56% number
of PHD students increased in the year 2012. But the main motive of research is to determine
the stress level in them because research cause stress inspite of the fact that universities
provides stress free environment to the students. Which on higher level is totally opposite such
as one in 500 individuals suffer mental stress. That means mental health is vital for accurate
research. This not only damages person’s health but also affect many things just like: Scientific
Research are crucial for country advancement so being unhealthy affects the research
outcomes. Also cause the serious increase in research cost being mentally upset or stressful.
Another reason is many researchers quit their studies in the middle and we didn’t get any
professional researchers that actually helps in advancing our country. The graph indicates the
faculty positions are less than the enrollment of PHD students between the years from 1999 to
2014. With the increase in the PHD Students, they compared the students of Flanders with
students of US and UK. But the PHD students are more inclined towards Flanders than UK and
US because Flander give them a friendly environment i.e., few compulsory classes, part time job
and proper funding by Flemish Government for research which universities of UK and US does
not do. These researchers also examined the similarities and differences in the PHD programs of
Europe and North America (U.S). They both emphasis on independent and individual research,
One or two research supervisors are assigned for guidance and proper funding are available in
both countries. Now the difference in their programs comprises of: The fees in Europe is higher
than U.S, In Europe Entry test is required while in US Masters is necessary for PHD, the PHD
program is of five years in Europe while seven years in US and in US students have to pass
exams but in Europe they emphasize on job and training the PHD researchers.
 But still we can’t infer anything about PHD Students as limited research held on the PHD
students while many research held at undergraduate level that people between 18 to 24 age
experience more stress in their University career. Here the most widely used instrument for
research is GHQ i.e. the General Health Questionnaire. This GHQ consist of both categorical and
dimensional analytical strategies. The Categorical strategy comprises of the assessment through
cut off values which describes least symptoms depicted in a person. While the dimensional
strategy describes the extent upto which a person experience mental problems. These Mental
Problems in work context is due to work load, insecurity of jobs and substandard supervisors.
Their working task and academic environment is different from other that’s why from many
research it is proved that work load is also the main cause of stress. Another stress factor is that
many of the researchers are working in different fields and different supervisors are needed
that develops the job insecurities in them. Also being a researcher, they face a lot of changes in
their field such as new task, new responsibilities and new supervisor that cause fear of failure in
them being indulged into new environment. So this shows that the social support is beneficial
for the PHD students by supervisors and colleagues as this is more comfortable to work within a
friendly environment except those who are making it a burden for them being so non
supportive. For this, the research is held by Finnish that in the study of 383 PHD Students it is
found that 44% students are empowered by the community support while 56% found it a
burden. On the other side Organizational context is also described which comprises of the
management strategies and flexible arrangement. Here the most important factor for a healthy
research and person is team work. Mostly researchers do their work in a team such as team
work is more necessary for working in natural science than in humanities and social science.
Also the worker participation in decision is necessary for distress as more people indulging and
giving their decisions leads to an accurate decision. According to World Health Organization,
the financial difficulties and life crisis are the cause of stress. While other research held on
Work-Home conflict tells us that the odd working hours of PHD students just like their working
in evening and weekend disturb them and their families which also cause mental distress.

Now the data and methodology used by the researchers to clarify the mental health problems
in PHD students is that they firstly used the sample of PHD students that are basically the junior
researchers i.e., 3659 people are used as a sample where the response rate of a questionnaire
was 33%. This data is then compared with other samples i.e., first the group of highly educated
individuals in the general population, second the highly educated employees and third with the
higher education students. They all firstly compared with the data of 2013 and then with the
data of previous years from 2001, 2004, 2008 and 2013.
 The questionnaire which is the General Health Questionnaire comprises of 12 items and the
most frequently used worldwide for a scientific research. In this all response were given on 4
point that’s uses bimodal scheme. Which means if a person has mental health problem then
least symptoms should be appeared in them. Here GHQ2+ means the appearance of atleast two
symptoms while GHQ3+ means appearance of atleast three symptoms and GHQ4+ menas the
appearance of atleast four symptoms. The work context is measured form Dutch VBBA quality
of labor questionnaire. In this job demand scale measures work load while job control scale
measures the job autonomy. The consistency in result is found such as 0.85 for job demand and
0.88 for job control. The variables were dichotomized into categories for withdrawing of result
just like 0 for low likelihood while 1 for high likelihood. Moreover the analytical strategy for this
research is RR i.e. the risk rate which is the ratio between the percentage respondents with
mental health.

Now moving on to the results of this research, about 51% lies in GHQ2+ , 40% in GHQ3+ and
32% in GHQ4+ category. Also the percentage in Table 4 tells us that PHD students are more
affected than the higher education general population i.e. twice higher than higher education
general population. The results also show that project funding is also developing the common
psychiatric disorder and the people who were supervised in a leadership style were more
empowered and enthusiastic for their research. Team work didn’t show any prominent effect
on mental health problems but decision making is considered to be a cause of mental health
problem. Here the work-family conflict also proved to be the cause of psychological distress.

So while concluding this survey, 51% of respondents had experienced at least two symptoms of
poor mental health, indicating psychological distress. Moreover, 32% reported at least four
symptoms, indicating a risk for common psychiatric disorders, which was more than twice the
prevalence among highly educated comparison groups. The most commonly reported
symptoms included depression, social withdrawal and loss of sleep are likely to be caused by
constant worrying and the inability to overcome difficulties and enjoy daily activities. The
greatest predictor for experiencing mental health challenges was having difficulty in taking care
of family needs due to conflicting work commitments. High job demands and low job control
were also associated with increased symptoms. Hence these factors have the significant impact
on the psychiatric disorder of the PHD students.