Análisis bibliométrico de la producción científica de las psicólogas en Perú / Bibliometric analysis of the scientific production of women psychologists in Peru

RESUMEN

Resumen La inequidad de género no es ajena a la ciencia, en la que la infrarrepresentación de la mujer en el ámbito académico resulta preocupante. Es una problemática que requiere un estudio profundo, en especial en carreras con altos porcentajes de mujeres como psicología y en regiones como Latinoamérica donde existe una considerable proporción de psicólogas científicas. La presente investigación tiene como objetivo caracterizar la producción de investigadoras en psicología por tipo de investigación, área de aplicación, liderazgo y temática. Se analizaron un total de 149 artículos publicados por 14 investigadoras que se encuentran en el Registro Nacional de Ciencia, Tecnología y de Innovación Tecnológica de Perú (RENACYT). Se excluyeron cuatro psicólogas por no contar con producción científica declarada y documentos repetidos, que no correspondían con un documento científico como resúmenes de congresos, artículos en revistas no indizadas y artículos inubicables en alguna base de datos; todo esto fue hecho siguiendo las recomendaciones de PRISMA. Los resultados señalan una mayor cantidad de coautorías (60.4 %), estudios con diseños empíricos (79.2 %), de objetivo asociativo (36.2 %), estrategia correlacional (21.5 %) y una mayor cantidad de artículos en el subcampo clínico y de la salud (38.9 %), así como en el educativo (38.3 %). Con respecto a la temática, aparecen con mayor frecuencia trastornos clínicos (23.5 %) y procesos cognitivos (16.8 %). Se concluye que las psicólogas investigadoras peruanas realizan estudios empíricos con un menor predominio de estudios teóricos manipulativos, cuasi experimentales o caso único y en mayor medida estudios en el área clínica y de la salud con predominio en trastornos clínicos.

ABSTRACT

Abstract Gender inequality has not been oblivious to science, where the under-representation of women in the academic scope is a concern. This is a problem that requires in-depth study, especially in careers with high percentages of women such as psychology and regions such as Latin America where there is a considerable proportion of female scientific psychologists. Despite this scene, the feminine production is known to present an increase; however, it is still lower than the masculine one. This shows that women are under-represented in leadership positions, hiring and applying for grants, and financing of research projects in public health and epidemiology. Likewise, review studies on female production in psychology are scarce in Peru and Latin America. The objective of this research is to characterize the production of women researchers in psychology by type of research, area of application, leadership and subject matter. For such objectives, a total of 149 papers published by 14 women researchers recorded in Peru's National Registry of Science, Technology and Technological Innovation (RENACYT) were analyzed. Four psychologists were excluded because they did not have their scientific production declared; in addition, repeated documents and those which did not correspond to scientific documents, such as congress summaries, papers in non-indexed journals and those excluded from any database were also excluded under the PRISMA's recommendations. The results show a greater quantity of co-authorships (60.4 %), studies with empirical designs (79.2 %), of associative objective (36.2 %), correlational strategy (21.5 %) and a greater quantity of papers in the clinical and health subfield (38.9 %) and education (38.3 %). As for the subject matter, clinical disorders (23.5 %) and cognitive processes (16.8 %) appear with greater frequency. Regarding these findings, there is scientific information evidencing that empirical designs are the most usual form of research, while the theoretical ones are the opposite; at least in Latin American. Furthermore, a ranking of the 100 most eminent psychologists of the 20th century only includes two women Mary Ainsworth and Anna Freud, ranked 98th and 100th respectively. As for the fact of finding that more than 50 % of researchers occupy the position of co-author, previous studies show similar percentages in the health field indicating an increase from 50.3 % to 55.6 % in co-authorship. Finally, there is little scientific literature about the frequent topics studied by psychologists; therefore, these results are unprecedented; however, a search in Scopus by keywords reveals that HIV is the most studied topic in Peru; a variable located in the clinical and health subfield. Likewise, another variable that appears in the search is depression, that can be included in the topic of clinical disorders. Despite these results, the study has the following limitations: firstly, feminine scientific production can be studied from diverse sources such as review of publications in a journal, presentations at a congress, production in Scopus, which can cause difficulties in contrasting results. Secondly, there are no studies on thematic analysis, which does not allow comparison with previous research and suggests taking the findings with caution because it has a more exploratory connotation, so it is recommended to continue with this type of study. In conclusion, research psychologists carry out empirical studies framed in the analysis of the relationship between variables with a lesser predominance of theoretical and manipulative, quasi-experimental or single case studies. To a greater extent, the research is clinical and based on health. The women appear as co-authors in a large percentage of studies where the most frequent subject is clinical disorder.