ArticlePsychology research and behavior management2019
Prevalence and associated factors of depression and anxiety among doctoral students: the mediating effect of mentoring relationships on the association between research self-efficacy and depression/anxiety.
Article in Psychology research and behavior management, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 43 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
43 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 125 citations in OpenAlex.
- Prevalence and severity of mental health problems in early-career researchers: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Nature human behaviour · 2026Pooled it
- Global prevalence and trend of anxiety among graduate students: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Brain and behavior · 2023Pooled it
- Systematic review and meta-analysis of depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation among Ph.D. students.Scientific reports · 2021Pooled it
- Academic Stress in Doctoral Research Scholars in Relation to Biochemical Markers and Mental Health Symptoms: A Single-Center Cross-Sectional Study.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Mentoring in Hospital Settings: A Systematic Review of Guidance, Care, and Professional Development.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Supervisor-student relationship and anxiety among graduate students: a moderated mediation model.BMC public health · 2026Article
- Anxiety towards research and associated factors among postgraduate students of Jimma University Institute of Health, southwest Ethiopia.PLOS mental health · 2026Article
- Protective or Pressuring? Multi-Group Structural Path Analysis of Family-School Support and Mental Health Among Postgraduates.European journal of investigation in health, psychology and education · 2025Article
- Mental Health Among Spanish Doctoral Students: Relationship Between Anxiety, Depression, Life Satisfaction, and Mentoring.European journal of investigation in health, psychology and education · 2025Article
- Assessing the well-being of PhD scholars: a scoping review.BMC psychology · 2025Article
- The Effect of Stress on Depression in Postgraduate Students: Mediating Role of Research Self-Efficacy and Moderating Role of Growth Mindset.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Emotions and feelings in neuroscience education across career stages: a qualitative study with views from alumni, junior and senior academics.BMC medical education · 2025Article
- Mechanisms of Anxiety Among Doctoral Students in China.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Utilising AI technique to identify depression risk among doctoral students.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- A systematic scoping review of mentoring support on professional identity formation.BMC medical education · 2024Article
- Behind the graduate mental health crisis in science.Nature biotechnology · 2024Article
- Unraveling psychological burden: the interplay of socio-economic status, anxiety sensitivity, intolerance of uncertainty, and stress in first-year medical students.BMC medical education · 2024Article
- Good stress or bad stress? An empirical study on the impact of time pressure on doctoral students' innovative behavior.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- Serve Yourself or Serve Your Students? How and When Supervisor Narcissism is Related to Mental Health of Graduate Students.Psychology research and behavior management · 2024Article
- Postgraduate psychological stress detection from social media using BERT-Fused model.PloS one · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
12 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeAlthough the mental health status of doctoral students deserves attention, few scholars have paid attention to factors related to their mental health problems. We aimed to investigate the prevalence of depression and anxiety in doctoral students and examine possible associated factors. We further aimed to assess whether mentoring relationships mediate the association between research self-efficacy and depression/anxiety.
methodsA cross-sectional study was conducted among 325 doctoral students in a medical university. The Patient Health Questionnaire 9 and Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7 scale were used to assess depression and anxiety. The Research Self-Efficacy Scale was used to measure perceived ability to fulfill various research-related activities. The Advisory Working Alliance Inventory-student version was used to assess mentoring relationships. Linear hierarchical regression analyses were performed to determine if any factors were significantly associated with depression and anxiety. Asymptotic and resampling methods were used to examine whether mentoring played a mediating role.
resultsApproximately 23.7% of participants showed signs of depression, and 20.0% showed signs of anxiety. Grade in school was associated with the degree of depression. The frequency of meeting with a mentor, difficulty in doctoral article publication, and difficulty in balancing work-family-doctoral program was associated with both the level of depression and anxiety. Moreover, research self-efficacy and mentoring relationships had negative relationships with levels of depression and anxiety. We also found that mentoring relationships mediated the correlation between research self-efficacy and depression/anxiety.
conclusionThe findings suggest that educational experts should pay close attention to the mental health of doctoral students. Active strategies and interventions that promote research self-efficacy and mentoring relationships might be beneficial in preventing or reducing depression and anxiety.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.