Ongoing healthcare system reforming brings both organizational and interpersonal changes to the health services worldwide. In order to ensure the quality of health services, healthcare professionals must continually adapt to these changes. This is likely to increase their physical and mental loads at work, leading to a series of negative health and work outcomes. This is a departure from the original intention for healthcare system reform. During the transformation of the healthcare system, healthcare professionals need the capabilities and resources to positively deal with many negative situations.
In 1998, Martin Seligman, the chairman of the APA, raised the concept of ‘Positive Psychology’. He emphasized that, in the future, the main missions of psychology should be helping individuals to generate, identify, and cultivate the strengths and virtues that are shown to facilitate success and wellbeing. In the field of occupational health psychology, positive psychology mainly focuses on promoting positive emotions, personal capabilities, interpersonal relationships, and positive organizations to play the role of positive psychological resources from the individual, interpersonal and organizational levels.
In recent years, many theoretical and empirical studies have been carried out across occupational populations and the number of publications has increased worldwide. These studies have proved that positive psychological capabilities and resources have positive effects on the physical and mental health, work attitude, and behavior of occupational groups. Also, some existed studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of positive psychology interventions. However, it is necessary to determine how and why these positive psychological strengths work in the workplace. In addition, supportive environments provided by a positive organization to improve the personal and interpersonal strengths should be clarified.
In line with this perspective, the importance of generating, identifying and cultivating the positive psychological strengths of healthcare professionals is increasingly emphasized in the healthcare field, such as resilience, optimism, self-efficacy, and autonomy. To put it in a more recent context, healthcare professionals working at the front line of combatting the COVID-19 outbreak, their occupational safety and health are threatened by pathogen exposure hazard, long working time, psychological distress, burnout, fatigue, and even stigma.
This Research Topic aims to bring together the most current papers that focus on the roles of positive psychology in healthcare professionals from scholars with psychology, psychiatry, public health, and sociology backgrounds. Authors could submit review and meta-analysis papers that provide an overview of the current state of research in this topic and original papers about positive psychology in some aspects of mental health, wellbeing, work attitude, and behavior in healthcare professionals. Moreover, we especially welcome papers that clarify the underlying mechanisms or causal relationships of positive psychological strengths with health and work outcomes that could develop new interventions.
Ongoing healthcare system reforming brings both organizational and interpersonal changes to the health services worldwide. In order to ensure the quality of health services, healthcare professionals must continually adapt to these changes. This is likely to increase their physical and mental loads at work, leading to a series of negative health and work outcomes. This is a departure from the original intention for healthcare system reform. During the transformation of the healthcare system, healthcare professionals need the capabilities and resources to positively deal with many negative situations.
In 1998, Martin Seligman, the chairman of the APA, raised the concept of ‘Positive Psychology’. He emphasized that, in the future, the main missions of psychology should be helping individuals to generate, identify, and cultivate the strengths and virtues that are shown to facilitate success and wellbeing. In the field of occupational health psychology, positive psychology mainly focuses on promoting positive emotions, personal capabilities, interpersonal relationships, and positive organizations to play the role of positive psychological resources from the individual, interpersonal and organizational levels.
In recent years, many theoretical and empirical studies have been carried out across occupational populations and the number of publications has increased worldwide. These studies have proved that positive psychological capabilities and resources have positive effects on the physical and mental health, work attitude, and behavior of occupational groups. Also, some existed studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of positive psychology interventions. However, it is necessary to determine how and why these positive psychological strengths work in the workplace. In addition, supportive environments provided by a positive organization to improve the personal and interpersonal strengths should be clarified.
In line with this perspective, the importance of generating, identifying and cultivating the positive psychological strengths of healthcare professionals is increasingly emphasized in the healthcare field, such as resilience, optimism, self-efficacy, and autonomy. To put it in a more recent context, healthcare professionals working at the front line of combatting the COVID-19 outbreak, their occupational safety and health are threatened by pathogen exposure hazard, long working time, psychological distress, burnout, fatigue, and even stigma.
This Research Topic aims to bring together the most current papers that focus on the roles of positive psychology in healthcare professionals from scholars with psychology, psychiatry, public health, and sociology backgrounds. Authors could submit review and meta-analysis papers that provide an overview of the current state of research in this topic and original papers about positive psychology in some aspects of mental health, wellbeing, work attitude, and behavior in healthcare professionals. Moreover, we especially welcome papers that clarify the underlying mechanisms or causal relationships of positive psychological strengths with health and work outcomes that could develop new interventions.
