Studies conducted in different countries on doctoral students indicate that they face mental health problems at a much higher rate than the rest of the population (Evans, Bira, & Vanderford, 2019; Woolstone, 2019). As these studies have shown, doctoral students are considered at risk for mental health problems, and the difficulties brought on by the current pandemic have been shown to exacerbate this problem. For example, a comprehensive study conducted by Chirikov et al. (2020) showed that depressive disorders among doctoral students doubled between 2019 and 2020, while general anxiety disorders increased by 1.5 after the onset of the pandemic.

Studies related to the mental health of doctoral students also show that mental health problems such as depression, anxiety, and stress are negatively correlated with the psychological well-being of doctoral students (Keyes et al., 2002; Yuksel & Bahadir-Yilmaz, 2018). In addition, Sverdlik et al.’s (2020) examination of 163 studies on the well-being of Ph.D. students demonstrated that there were several external factors such as supervision, departmental structures, and financial support that influenced the well-being of doctoral students. Well-being during doctoral education has been found to be shaping the well-being of academics throughout their career¨ (Schimdt & Hansson, 2018, p. 1). According to Schmidt and Hanson (2018) because the well-being of employees, for example, is strongly associated with their productivity and efficiency, ensuring the well-being of doctoral candidates may be of dire importance for higher education outcomes and for doctoral students’ life balance. This is validated further by studies indicating that threats to psychological and physical well-being negatively impact the academic motivation of doctoral students as well as the attainment of long-term and short-term goals (Geraniou, 2010; Tanaka & Watanabea, 2012). This accentuates the need to explore the well-being of doctoral students.

In the Turkish context studies conducted on related experiences of doctoral students have mostly focused on academic and economic problems of doctoral students as well as those focused on how doctoral students perceive the doctoral education process and their relationship with their advisors (Çepni, Kılınç, & Kılcan, 2017; Karadag & Özdemir, 2017).  However, there are a limited number of studies that examine the academic and personal lives of doctoral students during the Covid-19 pandemic and the factors that contribute to the well-being of doctoral students.

The current study examines how the covid-19 pandemic has impacted doctoral students’ academic, personal and professional lives as well as the relationship between external factors such as risk factors brought on by the pandemic (such as having been diagnosed with corona, having a family member diagnosed with corona, having lost a loved one due to corona, living with a family member who is at the at-risk group for the coronavirus), relationship with the advisor as well as internal factors such as their gender, age, stage in the doctoral program, and research assistantship status and their mental health problems experienced as measured by the DASS (depression, anxiety, stress) scale and the well-being of doctoral students. The study sought answers for the following research questions:

1. How has the covid-19 pandemic impacted the academic work of doctoral students as well as their personal and professional lives?

2. What is the relationship between internal factors of age, gender, stage of doctoral programs and research assistantship status, and the well-being of doctoral students?

3. What is the relationship between risk factors associated with Covid-19, the advisor-advisee relationship, and the well-being of doctoral students?

4. What is the relationship between depression, anxiety, stress levels, and the well-being of doctoral students?   

Correlational research design was employed to examine the relationship between demographic variables such as gender, age, stage in doctoral education and a research assistantship, risk factors related to the covid-19 pandemic, relationship with the advisor the mental health problems such as depression, anxiety and stress and the well-being of doctoral students. The study was conducted at a state university in the capital city of Turkey that has been identified as a research university. Criterion sampling was used with the criterion of currently being enrolled in a doctoral program at the given university. The target population was all doctoral students in the university. Out of 3369 doctoral students 213 doctoral students from different fields of study participated in the study. There were 129 Female and 71 Male participants while 13 of the participants did not indicate their gender. While most of the participants (127) were in the dissertation writing stage, there were 59 participants who were still taking courses, 25 preparing for the qualifying exam, and 2 who were about to graduate. Hundred and sixty-two of the participants are employed full time, 10 participants are employed part-time and 41 of the participants are not working currently. Of those working full time, 91 hold a research assistantship position. Data was collected through 3 questionnaires. The first questionnaire was a survey adapted from the Nature survey on the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on postdoctoral students (Woolstone, 2020) to assess the impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on the doctoral education process. It included demographic information as well as questions related to the academic, professional, and personal lives of doctoral students with a total of 56 questions. The second questionnaire was the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS 21) developed by Lovibond and Lovibond (1995) which was adopted to Turkish by Sarıcam (2018). The last questionnaire was the PERMA measure of well-being developed by Butler and Kern (2016) which was adopted to Turkish by Demirci et al. (2017). The reliability and validıty of the two scales had been established in prior studies. Both descriptive and hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted to examine the effect of the pandemic on the academic, personal and professional lives of the doctoral student through descriptive analysis and to examine the impact of the risk factors associated with the pandemic, support factors, and depression, anxiety and stress factors on the well-being of doctoral students through hierarchical multiple regression.

Results indicated that most of the participants who were in the dissertation writing stage reported that the Covid-19 Pandemic negatively affected their thesis writing (77%), data analysis (55%), data collection process (%64), laboratory experiments (69.5%), and their dissertation proposal defense (64%). Covid-19 pandemic also negatively impacted their academic career expectations (65%), relationship with their advisor (75%), and motivation to complete the doctoral degree (65%). Those participants who continue to attend courses indicated that their motivation for the courses (71.42), the assignments and projects (54.7), and their relations with course instructors (60.7) were negatively affected by the pandemic. Most of the participants also indicated the pandemic had a negative impact on their sleep patterns (62.9%), their eating habits (64.8%), and their workload at home (64.7%). Fifty-six percent of the participants reported thinking about dropping out of the doctoral program, 70% of the participants reported the need for social support, and 54.9% of the participants reported the need for receiving psychological support. The hierarchical multiple regression analysis revealed that Model 2 and Model 3 were significant. Model 1 which included demographic variables was not significant. Model 2 explained 20.2 % of the variance in well-being with the change in r-statistics from model 1 to model 2 being significant at p = .001, with the relationship with the advisor (ꞵ = .281 p= .004) and the covid-19 related risk factors as significant predictors (ꞵ = - .262 p= .007). Finally, Model 3 was significant explaining 41.5 % of the variance in well-being with r-square change value statistically significant at p = .001 which included the DASS Stress, Anxiety, and Depression subscales, with Depression as a significant predictor (ꞵ = -.456, p = .001). Results highlight that the advisor-advisee relationship, Covid-19 risk factors, and mental health problems play an important role in the wellbeing of doctoral students.

Butler, J., Kern, M. L. 2016. “The PERMA-Profiler: A brief multidimensional measure of flourishing”, International Journal of Wellbeing, 6(3), 1-48 Chirikov, I., Soria, K. M., Horgos, B., & Jones-White, D. (2020). Undergraduate and graduate students’ mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic. SERU Covid Survey: EC Berkeley Çepni, O., Kılınç, A. Ç., & Kılcan, B. (2018). Problems Experienced in Postgraduate Education and Solutions: A Qualitative Study on Graduate Students' Views. International Online Journal of Educational Sciences, 10(1). Evans, T.M., Bira, L. & Vanderford, N.L. (2019). Publisher correction: Reply to ‘A lack of evidence for six times more anxiety and depression in US graduate students than in the general population’. Nature Biotechnology, 37, 962. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-019-0211-2 Geraniou, E. (2010). The transitional stages in the PhD degree in mathematics in terms of students’ motivation. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 73, 281-296. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10649-009-9205-1 Karadağ, N., & Özdemir, S. (2017). Türkiye’de doktora eğitimi sürecine ilişkin öğretim üyelerinin ve doktora öğrencilerinin görüşleri. Yükseköğretim ve Bilim Dergisi, (2), 267-281. Keyes, C.L., Shmotkin, D., Ryff, C.D. (2002). Optimizing well-being: the empirical encounter of two traditions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, (82),1007–1022. Lovibond, P. F., Lovibond, S. H. 1995. “The structure of negative emotional states: Comparison of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS) with the Beck Depression and Anxiety Inventories”, Behaviour Research and Therapy, 33, 335-343. Sarıçam, H. 2018. “The psychometric properties of Turkish version of Depression Anxiety Stress Scale- 21 (DASS-21) in health control and clinical samples”, Bilişçi Davranışçı Psikoterapi ve Araştırmalar Dergisi, 7(1). Schmidt, M., & Hansson, E. (2018). Doctoral students’ well-being: a literature review. International journal of qualitative studies on health and well-being, 13(1), 1508171. Sverdlik, A., Hall, N. C., McAlpine, L., & Hubbard, K. (2018). The PhD experience: A review of the factors influencing doctoral students’ completion, achievement, and wellbeing. International Journal of Doctoral Studies, 13(1), 361-388. Tanaka, M., & Watanabea, Y. (2012). Academic and family conditions associated with intrinsic academic motivation in Japanese medical students: A pilot study. Health Education Journal, 71, 358-364. https://doi.org/10.1177/0017896911401004 Woolston, C. (2019). PhDs: the tortuous truth. Nature (575), 403-406. Woolston, C. (2020). Pandemic darkens postdoc’s work and career hopes. Nature, 585, 309–312. Yüksel, A., & Bahadir‐Yilmaz, E. (2019). Relationship between depression, anxiety, cognitive distortions, and psychological well‐being among nursing students. Perspectives in psychiatric care, 55(4), 690-696.