Mental health status and the risk/protective factors of Chinese scientific and technological professionals

GUO Fei; WANG Yaxin; LIU Yanan; ZHAI Jingya; CHEN Zhiyan

doi:10.3981/j.issn.1000-7857.2020.10.026

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Science & Technology Review ›› 2020, Vol. 38 ›› Issue (10) : 90-102. DOI: 10.3981/j.issn.1000-7857.2020.10.026

Frontiers of Science and Technological

Mental health status and the risk/protective factors of Chinese scientific and technological professionals

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1. CAS Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Beijing 100101, China;
2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China

Abstract

The scientific and technological professionals are an important innovative and developing power in the framework of the national strategy. Their mental health is vital to ensure their creativity and productivity. To study the mental health state and the risk/protective factors among Chinese scientific and technological professionals, a large survey with over 10,000 samples is conducted in 2019. It is shown that:over 1/5 scientific and technological professionals have depressive symptoms, 10.6% have the suicide ideation in the past year, and 55.5% suffer varying degrees of anxiety, about 8.8% and 4.5% of the professionals have moderate and sever anxieties, respectively. Male professionals have higher level of depression than the female professionals. The young and middle aged professionals have higher level of depression and anxiety than the elder ones. The professionals with middle-level professional titles or without titles have the highest level of depression and anxiety and the higher the titles, the less the risk of suicide ideation. More research professionals have depression than the support and manage professionals; the work stress, and the life stress, such as the financial strain and some stress related to family member issues are the risk factors of the scientific and technological professionals. Meanwhile, the support from colleagues and leaders, the better emotional regulation ability and strategies, the environmental adaption, the coping ability, the better psychical health and more frequent exercise are the protective factors. Generally, the scientific and technological professionals have mental health needs and would like to accept mental health services, especially, the highly privacy protected ones. However, there are both objective and subjective obstacles, due to the limited service resources and lack of knowledge of mental health services. At present, the mental health services cannot meet the needs of scientific and technological professionals. Therefore, the mental health services should be implemented and strengthened, and the knowledge of mental health should be popularized.

Key words

scientific and technological professionals / mental health status / mental health services

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GUO Fei, WANG Yaxin, LIU Yanan, ZHAI Jingya, CHEN Zhiyan. Mental health status and the risk/protective factors of Chinese scientific and technological professionals[J]. Science & Technology Review, 2020, 38(10): 90-102 https://doi.org/10.3981/j.issn.1000-7857.2020.10.026

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