Psychosocial work stressors and mental health in Ph.D. students in Germany—Evidence from two cross-sectional samples

Meike Heming, Peter Angerer and Mathias Diebig

PLOS ONE, 2024, vol. 19, issue 12, 1-16

Abstract: Background: Ph.D. students have been shown to report a lower mental health status compared to the general population. However, not much is known about the impact of psychosocial work stressors that could contribute to their increased risks of mental health symptoms. This study aims firstly to assess levels of psychosocial stressors, perceived stress, and mental health symptoms in Ph.D. students. Second, it investigates which psychosocial stressors are most strongly associated with mental health symptoms and perceived stress. Methods: One self-reported questionnaire was distributed among Ph.D. students at one university in Germany, in summer 2023 (T1) and winter 2023/2024 (T2). Psychosocial stressors were assessed with the short version of the effort-reward imbalance (ERI) questionnaire and with the 16-item DYNAMIK questionnaire. Mental health symptoms were assessed with the 12-item-version of the general health questionnaire (GHQ-12). Perceived stress levels were assessed with the 10-item perceived stress scale (PSS). Within a cross-sectional study design, multiple linear regression analyses were performed in two study samples (n = 267 at T1; n = 244 at T2). Results: Ph.D. students reported an imbalance between effort and reward in both study samples (T1: M = 1.34, SD = 0.45; T2: M = 1.27, SD = 0.52). Effort-reward-ratio, boundary permeability, and leader support were associated with mental health symptoms and perceived stress in both study samples, when controlled for age and gender. For example, effort-reward-ratio showed a meaningful impact on mental health symptoms for the study sample at T2 (B = 3.85; p

Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0311610 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id= ... 11610&type=printable (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0311610

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0311610

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS ONE from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by plosone ().