What do we know about university academics' mental health? A systematic literature review

Abstract

There has been a growing interest in the negative influence that the environment of higher education institutions has on the mental health of academics. The current climate of global education-competition places extreme expectations on academics. A number of factors influence academics' mental health, such as teaching, supervising, generating research income, among others, and there is evidence to suggest that the university environment is jeopardising academics' physical and psychological health. This study sought to review the international literature with a view to ascertaining what the most commonly used measures are to investigate this topic, including the main stressors and coping strategies reported/used by academics and their lived experiences. A thorough review of the literature was conducted, and 28 studies were identified and critically analysed. The review concludes that there is compelling evidence that the university environment is triggering high levels of stress and burnout and low levels of well-being for academics. There is extremely limited research on the perceptions and lived experiences of academic staff. It is virtually unknown, what coping strategies academics use to face job demands, and our knowledge about burnout seems to be limited by the use of one particular measure without cultural adaptations. Practical implications and directions for future research are proposed.

A Case Study Investigating Mental Wellbeing of University Academics during the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Despite increasingly high expectations of academics [19], the mental wellbeing of this group has received relatively little attention. Prior to the pandemic, Kinman and Johnson (2019) [39] noted that academics were having to fulfil numerous additional roles at the same time as role clarity, autonomy and collegiality were declining, contributing to an increased volume and intensity of work.…”

“…Despite this, research suggests that the emotional investment and time spent in supporting student mental health is not adequately recognized by universities and support for academics is limited [16,18]. Notably, in providing support to the students, the mental health and wellbeing of academics is often ignored [19]. Usually, the time spent in supporting students is unaccounted for and comes at a cost to other responsibilities, including research, which are assessed in performance reviews and count towards academic promotion [20].…”

Impact of COVID-19 on Medicine Lecturers’ Mental Health and Emergency Remote Teaching Challenges

“…There has been growing awareness of the adverse influence that the environment of higher education institutions has on the mental health of academics, who have shown high levels of stress and burnout and low levels of well-being [ 17 ]. A previous COVID-19 study of 520 higher education lecturers in Portugal concluded that stress levels decrease after 60 years of age, but are higher in female lecturers and those with less than 10 and more than 30 years of professional experience [ 12 ].…”

Activity-based work and its implications for the academic work environment

“…In accordance with the job demands – resources theory (Bakker and Demerouti, 2017), the office space and design can be both a resource enabling high-quality work performance, and a demand when it fails to do so (Colenberg et al , 2020). The physical work environment should support the core activities while facilitating a good psychosocial work environment, shown to be important for efficiency (Jensen et al , 2020), as well as health/well-being (Urbina-Garcia, 2020) of university teachers and researchers.…”

“…funding, publishing, citations). Considering the importance of good psychosocial work environment for university academics' health/well-being (Urbina-Garcia, 2020) and efficiency (Jensen et al , 2020), it is vital to understand how the psychosocial work environment is affected by the physical work environment (Colenberg et al , 2020). There are indications that academics rate personal offices higher than open-plan offices concerning productivity, overall comfort and health (Khoshbakht et al ., 2020).…”