An Evaluation of the Mental Health, Financial Stress, and Anticipated Debt-at-Graduation Across Clinical and Counseling PhD and PsyD Students

Abstract

Clinical and counseling psychology doctoral programs are popular avenues for graduate education. However, little is known about the mental health and financial stress of students across the differing types of programs. We conducted as online survey of current doctoral students in APA-accredited psychology doctoral programs ( n = 114 Clinical PhD, n = 80 Counseling PhD, n = 123 PsyD). We also utilized a control ( n = 5,401 undergraduate psychology/social science majors). Results indicated that students in all doctoral programs had lower depression scores compared to undergraduates. Clinical PhD students demonstrated the best outcomes, though not significantly better from other doctoral programs. Undergraduates demonstrated significantly less financial stress compared to counseling PhD and PsyD students, but not clinical PhD students. Large differences were observed regarding anticipated debt-at-graduation, with PsyD students reporting the highest anticipated debt. Areas for further research, limitations, and policy implications are discussed.

Stress, anxiety, and depression in psychology graduate student trainees and licensed psychologists: A scoping review.

“…Cross-sectional studies had sample sizes ranging from 74 (Klein et al, 2022) to 939 (Furr & Brown-Rice, 2018). Two studies reviewed included a control or comparison condition: general population (Rico & Bunge, 2021) or psychology undergraduates (Borgogna et al, 2021).…”

“…Regarding current depression symptoms, four studies examined prevalence rates of depression, which ranged from 21.7% to 39.3%. These rates were identified through PHQ-9 scores above a clinical cutoff indicating caseness (Borgogna et al, 2021; Hobaica et al, 2021; Schneider et al, 2021) or endorsing five or more Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed. ; DSM-5) symptoms of major depressive disorder (Rummell, 2015).…”

“…Our review found that most studies examining mental health symptoms did so using questionnaires rather than diagnostic interviews to identify true prevalence rates. There was also wide variability regarding how symptoms of depression and anxiety were measured, ranging from asking participants to endorse DSM-5 symptoms (Rummell, 2015), creating their own inventories to measure symptoms (e.g., Doran et al, 2016), or using measures with established clinical cutoffs (e.g., Borgogna et al, 2021). Research examining mental health symptoms was exclusively cross-sectional, and there were no longitudinal studies that met inclusion criteria for this review.…”

High Impact, Low Mood: An Analysis of Graduate Student Attitudes and Perceptions Through PHD Memes

“…Studies of mental health in graduate education have explored the effect across disciplines: law, economics, psychology, life sciences, arts & humanities, and medicine, just to name a handful, and have generally found the issue to be present across field lines (Barreira et al, 2018;Borgogna et al, 2021;Dyrbye et al, 2005;Gin et al, 2021;Hyun et al, 2006;Peluso et al, 2011; UC-Berkeley Graduate Assembly, 2014). Additionally, there are indications that the rates are higher among various marginalized populations of graduate students, including LGBTQ+, Latinx, women, and international students (Barreira et al, 2018;Charles et al, 2021;Chirikov et al, 2020;Evans et al, 2018).…”

“…One study found that graduate students tended to report more financial stress than undergraduates (Borgogna et al, 2021). There is also an established link between financial distress and poorer psychological health among graduate students across multiple studies (Charles et al, 2021;di Pierro, 2017;Evans et al, 2018;Hyun et al, 2006;Jones-White et al, 2020).…”