A thematic analytic account of university support services' acceptability for postgraduate researchers experiencing mental health problems

Abstract Background Doctoral students report high rates of mental health problems. Universities are required to provide support services to all students, yet doctoral students infrequently access such services. For those doctoral students who do access these services, little is known about their experiences. This research aimed to explore the acceptability of university mental health support services for doctoral students with mental health problems. Methods The project accessed qualitative data from a large online survey of UK doctoral student mental health, collected between 2018 and 2019, in which doctoral students were asked about their experiences of university support services. Qualitative data from 586 participants were included. The data were analysed using a deductive–inductive thematic analysis approach. A theoretical model of acceptability was used, which had seven thematic categories: affective attitude, burden, ethicality, intervention coherence, opportunity costs, perceived effectiveness and self‐efficacy. Results Ten subthemes were identified across the seven higher order themes, reflecting the multidimensional nature of doctoral student experiences of acceptability. Factors including positive interactions with staff and receiving contextually sensitive support were associated with greater acceptability, whilst perceived difficulties relating to confidentiality and accessing help contributed to lower acceptability. Conclusions Positive and negative perceptions of university support services were identified across various domains of acceptability. This research identified multiple avenues for improving the acceptability of university support services to the vulnerable doctoral student group, such as better advertisement, upskilling of staff and increased utilisation of remote service delivery. Future research should seek to explore perceptions of diverse student groups and to more precisely identify specific attributes of support services that influence perceptions of acceptability, particularly with respect to perceived effectiveness.