TABLE 3.

Research-related factors that PhD students reported positively affected their depression

Factor	Description	% (n) (N = 50)	Example quote	Example quote
Completing small or concrete research tasks	Completing small or concrete research tasks helps students feel like they have accomplished something or distracts their mind from negative thoughts, which can positively affect student depression.	26 (13)	Student 24: “When I’m doing wet lab work I’m in the zone, [it is good for my depression]. When I’m in that mode, it doesn’t allow me to be depressed, because I’m too busy to really overthink things.”	Student 35: “I have a very simple goal, which is to collect my data and that’s all I think about for the entire day. I’m hiking, I’m listening to audio books, whatever. And so, there’s literally just no time for me to get caught up in my own mind.”
Working with others	Interacting with others can positively affect student depression.	22 (11)	Student 43: “Working collaboratively with other students and working consistently with faculty helps a lot [with my depression].”	Student 20: “Friends, obviously, colleagues, people who share the same sentiment [help my depression]. It’s amazing to have people right next to you say, ‘Don’t worry about it, this happens to everyone. Try this, try that.’”
Passionate about research topic	Feeling passionate about their research topic or caring about the potential impact of research can positively affect student depression.	18 (9)	Student 10: “I love vaccines, I love immunology, I love recombinant genetic engineering. That in itself actually does help [my depression] a lot because I get to learn more every day. (…) That absolutely helps [my depression] because it drives me.”	Student 25: “I study plants and I really love plants and being around them. And so that’s been the best part is getting to work with plants in the greenhouse, and that feels helpful [for my depression].”
Flexibility	Flexibility in research allows students to feel as though they have control over their time and they can prioritize their mental health (e.g., by going to therapy or taking a mental health day) when necessary, which can positively affect student depression.	18 (9)	Student 12: “I can schedule therapy whenever. I’m not confined to a specific nine-to-five workday. (…) If I wake up one day and I’m really struggling, I can shift my weekends. I can be like, ‘All right. Today I need to take care of me,’ and then maybe I’ll work an extra day of the weekend if I need to catch up or something. So that flexibility can be really supportive.”	Student 47: “Some jobs, you have to be there, whereas with grad school if I’m having a really bad day and I really feel like I can’t handle being in the lab, it’s a little easier for me to not have to be there or for me to rearrange my schedule so I’m doing [tasks] that are a little bit less stressful for me.”
Research progress	Making significant progress in research can positively affect student depression.	16 (8)	Student 46: “I will say [something that helps my depression] is when you are working really hard on the experiment, on the goal, and then finally you get something, when you get good data. This makes all of my effort worth it.”	Student 1: “Making progress helps me feel less [depressed], when I am getting a lot of data. I never feel stressed about my productivity at those points in time.”
Emotionally supportive PI	A positive mentor relationship, which often involves psychosocial support, can positively affect student depression.	12 (6)	Student 23: “Things that help [my depression] are having a supportive PI who you’re able to talk to about your mental illness, and who’s understanding.”	Student 38: “If I didn’t have the advisors that I have now, I don’t know that I would be able to proceed through getting a PhD, because I have been able to be very open with them about my mental health struggles and the reality of how mental illness affects me and affects my life and my productivity. And they haven’t really rigorously pushed me beyond my stated limitations.”