Mental Health in Academia: A survey of individuals who support researchers

An eLife survey sheds light on the experiences of those in the academic community who help researchers struggling with their mental health.

In 2019, eLife launched a global survey to better understand the experiences of peers, colleagues and mentors who support researchers struggling with their mental health.

This work was conducted in response to growing concerns about academic mental health, and emerging evidence that supporting relationships within the research community are key to wellbeing. Yet little is known about the nature of these interactions, and the needs of those who provide this kind of support.

The results reveal interactions that are complex, positive but also challenging, with a heightened impact on certain populations of supporters. Detailed findings are shared in a peer-reviewed report.

  1. download the report

The implications of these results for the academic community are discussed in an eLife Feature Article. We encourage the community to build on these results. To this end, we have made the code, dataset and survey questions available for reuse.

Please cite the report as: Elsa Loissel, Emmy Tsang, Sandrine Müller, Julia Deathridge, Helena Pérez Valle, Yo Yehudi, Lucy Cheke (2020). The experiences of those who support researchers struggling with their mental health. https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.60247

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We welcome comments, questions and feedback. Please contact us at features [at] elifesciences [dot] org.

For more content regarding research culture: https://elifesciences.org/collections/edf1261b/research-culture-a-selection-of-articles

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