The gender gap in Ph.D. entrepreneurship: How do students perceive the academic environment?

This paper investigates gender issues in Ph.D. entrepreneurship. The empirical analysis is based on data from a questionnaire survey run in 2014-15 in Italy. We analyse how Ph.D. students perceive the institutional entrepreneurial environment, the drivers and the factors hindering entrepreneurship and gender-equality among faculties at the parent institution. We find evidence of a gender bias in Ph.D. entrepreneurship and that the perception about the factors either hampering or supporting entrepreneurship is deeply different between sexes. The academic environment can have a fundamental impact on students' decisions to start new ventures and on the probability that they will abandon their entrepreneurial intentions. Female student entrepreneurs particularly benefit from the opportunity to engage with a gender-balanced work environment.

COVID-19 related poor mental health and sleep disorders in rheumatic patients: a citizen science project.

BACKGROUND: Patients with chronic rheumatic diseases (RDs) are more vulnerable and the containment measures related to the COVID-19 pandemic might have severe psychological consequences. We investigated the presence of and risk factors associated with poor mental health, sleep disorders among RDs during the pandemic. METHODS: This cross-sectional Italian citizen science project evaluated the psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in patients with RDs. Between May and September 2020, eleven RD patients' associations sent the survey by using their mailing list and the related webpage and social network. 507 RD patients completed an ad-hoc anonymous online survey including the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) and Impact Event Scale-Revised (IES-R). RESULTS: The mean scores on the PSS-10 and the IES-R were 18.1 and 29.7, respectively. Higher PSS scores were associated with younger age (p <  0.01), female gender (p <  0.01), overweight/obesity (p = 0.01), psychiatric pharmacotherapy (p <  0.01), and anxiety for loss of income (p <  0.01). Higher IES-R scores were associated with female gender (p <  0.01), intestinal diseases (p = 0.03), anxiety (p <  0.01), and health concern (p <  0.01). Among 375 patients with inflammatory arthritis, 246 (65.6%) had trouble staying asleep, 238 (63.5%) falling asleep, and 112 (29.9%) had dreams about the pandemic. Older age (OR = 1.038, CI 1.002-1.076), psychiatric pharmacotherapy (OR = 25.819, CI 11.465-58.143), and COVID infection (OR = 2.783, CI 1.215-6.372) were predictive of insomnia during the pandemic. CONCLUSIONS: A considerable COVID-19 related psychosocial burden has been detected in RDs. Different factors were predictive of poor mental health and sleep disorders in these patients. Focused supportive strategies should be implemented to improve the psychological well-being of fragile patients during pandemics.

Dataset from a qualitative survey on Ph.D. entrepreneurship in Italy.

This article describes questionnaire data on Ph.D. (Doctor of Philosophy) entrepreneurship in Italy. The data includes (i) information recently collected via a questionnaire survey on Ph.D. students; (ii) background information on Italian academic institutions attended by students. We present here some descriptive statistics of the variables included in the dataset. The database includes the responses of 906 students. Students provided information on their employment condition, on their family background and opinions on the Ph.D. course and the institution they attended. Information on regional characteristics and on university policies are also included.