Research shows: my country's postgraduate group has significant depression and anxiety problems
“The mental health of graduate students has been a hot topic in international scientific research in recent years. In the past, it was generally believed that a person’s mental health was slightly positively correlated with his social and economic status, that is to say, higher income, higher education, and People with more stable careers and better professional reputations will have better mental health. However, international studies in the past two or three years have revealed that nearly 40% of PhDs are living with psychological problems such as anxiety and depression. These highly educated talents are from China The main force of future scientific research, so their mental health is more worthy of attention." Chen Zhiyan, a professor at the Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, said in an interview with a reporter from China Youth Daily and China Youth Daily.
In 2019, Chen Zhiyan led the research team of the Institute of Psychology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences to investigate the mental health of graduate students in my country. The special report "Postgraduate Mental Health in 2019 and Influencing Factors" was included in the report published in March this year. The 2020 edition of the "Blue Book of Mental Health" and the "Report on the Development of China's National Mental Health (2019-2020)".
The depression and anxiety levels of graduate students are worrying
This survey took graduate students from the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences as a sample. The questionnaires used the Center for Depression Scale, Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale, National Mental Health Literacy Questionnaire, Relationship with Mentor Questionnaire, Graduate Stressor and other questionnaires.
The results found that 35.5% of the postgraduates surveyed may have a certain degree of depression, and 60.1% of the postgraduates surveyed have anxiety problems.
The average level of depression and anxiety of girls is higher than that of boys, and the proportions of depressive tendencies of different genders are almost the same.
"It is a common phenomenon for women to have higher levels of depression and anxiety than boys. Generally speaking, women are more sensitive to negative and positive emotions, so survey results often show that women have higher levels of depression and anxiety." Chen Zhiyan explained Say.
The survey found that 35.9% of female graduate students may have a certain degree of depression, of which 12.7% have a high risk of depression; 35.2% of male graduate students may have a certain degree of depression, of which 12.2% have a high risk of depression.
The survey also found that the average level of depression and anxiety of doctoral students was significantly higher than that of master students.
The proportion of doctoral students who tend to be depressed is also higher than that of master students.
Among master students, 34.7% have a certain degree of depression, of which 12.1% have a high risk of depression; among doctoral students, 36.6% have a certain degree of depression, of which 12.9% have a high risk of depression.
As a result of such a high proportion of depression and anxiety levels, academic pressure is an important factor that cannot be ignored.
"From a college student to a postgraduate, you need to go through a process of mentality change. During the university, you can get good grades if you study a course carefully and fully master it. However, during the postgraduate period, the subjects faced are exploratory. Yes, especially for doctoral students, the thesis requires innovation, which may not be achieved by hard work alone. There are also many doctors in science fields. If the experimental results do not meet expectations, all previous efforts will be in vain. Change the research direction and start again. Because scientific research is uncontrollable, all graduate students will be under psychological pressure, while the psychological pressure on doctoral students is relatively greater."
In addition to the heavy academic burden, unsatisfactory employment prospects and not knowing what kind of work they are suitable for are also major stressors for graduate students.
Chen Zhiyan told reporters that the survey showed that the pressure of graduate students in the graduation grade is significantly higher than that of graduate students in other grades.
"This is actually a superposition of academic pressure and employment pressure." Chen Zhiyan said, "Especially for doctoral students, at the graduation stage, on the one hand, they have to worry about whether the dissertation can be passed successfully. The requirements for a doctoral dissertation are very strict. If the paper does not meet the standard, students need to spend a lot of energy to revise, or even need to re-defend; on the other hand, they have to worry about employment issues, and finding a job is also a matter of uncertainty. So graduate grade graduate students The pressure is also additive."
The heavy academic pressure has led to excessively long working hours for graduate students, and excessively long working hours have a negative impact on mental health.
Studies believe that the longer the working hours, the higher the risk of depression and anxiety. When the daily working hours exceed 10 hours, a certain degree of depression may occur. Therefore, controlling the daily working hours within 10 hours may be more psychologically beneficial. health.
The average working hours of graduate students participating in this survey is 61.95 hours per week. From the distribution perspective, about 70% of graduate students work 8 hours or more per day, and 36.5% of graduate students work 10 hours or more per day.
Mental health literacy skills are not up to standard is a common phenomenon among graduate students
Chen Zhiyan told reporters that depression and anxiety levels are significantly related to mental health literacy skills.
The mental health status of the postgraduate group also reflects that even the high-educated group in my country still has the problem of substandard mental health literacy skills.
For graduate students, it is necessary to improve emotional awareness, distraction, cognitive reassessment, and interpersonal support skills, which are necessary to reduce the risk of depression and anxiety.
Chen Zhiyan explained that emotional awareness refers to a person's ability to perceive negative emotions or emotional fluctuations.
“Sometimes people’s perception of their emotions is very slow. For example, some people are clearly dissatisfied, but they don’t know or even why they are dissatisfied. They just behave irritably; some people are very depressed and have reached The clinical limits of depression, but he just feels that he does not have the energy to study and work. He is tired no matter what he does, but he cannot detect that he has negative emotions. Emotional awareness is the basis of emotional control. You must first discover that you have emotional fluctuations. Then we can control emotions." Chen Zhiyan said.
Chen Zhiyan introduced that the most commonly used skill for emotional control based on emotional awareness is distraction.
"If you think about something, the more annoying you get, do something else to distract yourself. Don't get caught up in the boring things and let yourself fall into pain."
Cognitive reappraisal is the most recommended method of emotion regulation by psychologists.
"Even if you are distracted, the troubles are still there. If you don't improve your understanding of this matter, you will still be upset when you think about it." Chen Zhiyan said, "Cognitive reassessment refers to the adjustment of a person's thoughts. Being able to re-understand and re-evaluate a thing. For example, when you adjust your thoughts and see that there is a bad side and a good side, your emotions will be alleviated. This is one of the most scientific ways to control emotions. One."
Interpersonal support is a method that many people naturally use in their daily lives to regulate their emotions.
Some people will confide in others when they have troubles, ask for help, and some people will drink and eat with friends, all of which help ease the mood.
But there are also some people who are stuck in their hearts and lack channels to talk to others or find someone to accompany them. It is very difficult for these people to ease their emotions.
Chen Zhiyan pointed out that in terms of seeking interpersonal support, the postgraduate group is unique.
For the general population, the strongest interpersonal support is often relatives and friends, but for graduate students, the strongest support comes from mentors.
The relationship between graduate students and supervisors is an important factor affecting their mental health.
Chen Zhiyan found in the survey that the more frequently the tutor communicates with the student, the higher the student's satisfaction with the teacher-student relationship.
In general, most students are satisfied with the frequency of communication once a week.
The tutor takes fewer students, and the relationship with the students will be relatively closer.
When a tutor takes a dozen or even dozens of students, the students will get much less guidance and communication from the tutor.
Strengthen mental health education and support for graduate students
Through this investigation, Chen Zhiyan felt that the mental health support of the postgraduate group was very insufficient.
"In many universities, the core service group of student mental health centers is undergraduates. For graduate students, especially doctoral students, publicity and support are not enough. For example, some schools organize undergraduates to visit the student mental health center after enrollment. , So that students have a certain understanding of the center, a little more intimacy, and it is easier to come here to ask for help when they need help, but this work often does not necessarily cover graduate students, especially doctoral students."
Chen Zhiyan further pointed out that undergraduates often can take mental health courses in public elective courses. Some schools also make mental health courses a compulsory course, so that all students have the opportunity to get in touch with some basic mental health knowledge, which is effective in improving mental health literacy. way.
However, for graduate students, especially doctoral students, most schools do not offer mental health courses, and some schools do not offer courses on a regular basis, but are also voluntary electives.
But in fact, it is necessary for the mental health class to be popularized by everyone.
Therefore, mental health education for graduate students must be strengthened to improve mental health literacy.
In addition, Chen Zhiyan believes that more support and training are needed for the tutors.
She introduced that the Chinese Academy of Sciences is paying more and more attention to mental health training for tutors. In the past ten years or so, new tutors have been provided with mental health education and training. Chen Zhiyan hopes that in the future, the training hours for tutors will be further increased, and the tutors will be more In-depth training allows the instructor to have a certain ability to recognize students' mental health trends.
When a student has a psychological problem, the instructor can be aware of it and let the professional intervene in time.
In addition, instructors also need to understand the characteristics of youth psychological development and learn the skills of management psychology in order to better understand graduate students, give them appropriate support, and better guide and help graduate students.
The implementation of these tasks requires universities and even higher education related departments to formulate clearer systems and procedures, as well as to allocate certain funds and personnel.
China Youth Daily·China Youth Daily reporter Xia Jin Source: China Youth Daily
Version 08, April 13, 2021