Scientific Production of Psychology Program Directors from Peruvian Universities

Scientific production studies help describe the progress of scientific knowledge in a discipline. Therefore, those who hold director positions should promote scientific production and publication of scientific knowledge to address health problems. The objective was to identify the scientific production of psychology program directors from Peruvian universities. A search was made for all psychology programs in Peruvian universities. Thus, psychology program directors’ scientific production was identified and analyzed in the Scopus and Web of Science databases between 2000 and 2019. The search for the directors’ scientific production was conducted through ORCID, GOOGLE SCHOLAR, CTI Vitae (former DINA), Scopus and Web of Science. Thirty-eight psychology program directors were identified, five of them conducted a scientific publication, all of them from private universities. Of the articles assessed, 50% and 60% had a psychology program director as first author or corresponding author. In addition, 70% were original articles, 40% of which were analytical studies. Psychology program directors’ scientific production is limited. The articles published are mainly original and are concentrated in Latin American journals. It is likely that, since they have no experience in scientific production and publication, their leadership in promoting research is vulnerable.

Development of a Positive Psychology Program (LAVENDER) for Preserving Medical Student Well-being: A Single-Arm Pilot Study

Background Mental health tends to worsen over the course of medical school, with steep declines in well-being in students’ clerkship year (M3). Positive emotion promotes adaptive coping to stress and may help preserve medical student well-being. Objective This study describes the development of LAVENDER (Leveraging Affect and Valuing Empathy for Nurturing Doctors’ Emotional Resilience), a program aimed at increasing positive emotion to preserve well-being in medical students. Methods We conducted a single-arm pilot of LAVENDER, a positive psychology intervention developed for medical students delivered in an interactive classroom format to a cohort of 157 third-year medical students at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Our primary outcome was the acceptability of LAVENDER. We also examined preliminary efficacy using measures of emotion, stress and burnout collected at each intervention session. Results LAVENDER showed good acceptability: 76% of participants agreed that the LAVENDER skills were useful and 72% agreed that they would recommend the LAVENDER program to others. Qualitative feedback suggested that medical students enjoyed the program and found the skills to be useful for coping with stress, but also reported the following barriers to engagement: lack of time to practice the skills, resistance to the mandatory nature of the wellness sessions, and difficulty integrating the skills in daily life. We did not find support for the preliminary efficacy of LAVENDER for improving medical student well-being in students’ clerkship year. Participants showed decreases in positive emotion and increases in symptoms of burnout over the intervention period ( ps < .01). Conclusion The current paper describes the development and a single-arm pilot test of LAVENDER, a positive psychology program tailored for medical students. Although we found preliminary evidence for the acceptability of LAVENDER, we did not find support for the preliminary efficacy. Lessons learned and next steps for the program are discussed.