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Stress & Burnout in Graduate Students: The Role of Work‐Life Balance and Mentoring Relationships
Author(s) -
Evans Teresa M.,
Bira Lindsay,
Gastelum Jazmin Beltran,
Weiss L. Todd,
Vanderford Nathan L.
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.2018.32.1_supplement.535.27
Subject(s) - mentorship , burnout , emotional exhaustion , depersonalization , mental health , situational ethics , psychology , medical education , population , medicine , clinical psychology , social psychology , psychiatry , environmental health
Many factors contribute to the success of graduate students such as mental health, work‐life balance and mentorship. Stress, a key component of one's mental health, and its management are correlated with training success among graduate students. The 2015 University of Arizona Graduate Student Mental Health National Association of Graduate Professional Students Report found that a majority of doctoral students experienced “more than average” stress or “tremendous” stress and endorsed school and education‐related issues as the most significant contributors. Additionally, multiple studies have shown that there is a correlation between occupational stress and the development of burnout. Burnout involves emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and diminished sense of personal accomplishment. Despite knowing that graduate students have high rates of stress, key questions about the impact of situational factors such as work‐life balance and mentorship on stress and burnout has not been defined in this population. As such, the current study explores the interaction between stress, burnout, work‐life balance and mentoring relationships in a diverse population of graduate students. We deployed a comprehensive survey, via social media and direct email, that included validated scales for stress and burnout as well as questions related to work‐life balance and mentorship. We surveyed a total of 2,231 respondents (223 Master's students and 2,008 PhD students) who represented the following fields of study: science (39%), humanities and social sciences (55%), engineering (2%), and other (4%). Master's and PhD students had significantly high rates of moderate to severe stress, 81% and 82% respectively. Seventy‐three percent 73% of Master's students and 70% of PhD students indicated moderate to severe burnout. Area of study, quality of mentoring relationships and work‐life balance were significantly correlated with stress and burnout. The results of this study support the need to bolster ongoing initiatives that are focused on improving the work‐life balance and mentor/mentee relationships of graduate students. We also suggest integrating measures of mental health into the evaluation of ongoing initiatives in order to fully measure the impact of a particular program. Additionally, we suggest that there is a need for developing new interventions that could perhaps have a greater impact on graduate student well being. This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2018 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal .