Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Mental Health, and Integrity in Peruvian Public Managers: Foundations for a Research Hypothesis

Abstract

La criminología económica sostiene que la racionalización, un proceso cognitivo de justificación, es uno de los tres elementos necesarios para un acto de The field of economic criminology states that rationalization — which refers to a cognitive justification process — is one of three essential factors for corruption to take place, the other two being pressure and opportunity. In this context, public managers are understood to be directors and officials who have decision-making responsibilities in administrative, budgetary, or procurement areas. The overall objective was to look at the evidence regarding the use of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) in the workplace and to see how this relates to fraud rationalization; the particular objectives were (a) to summarise the empirical evidence on the effectiveness of CBT in reducing work-related stress and burnout, and (b) to examine the connection between this and the cognitive processes that allow for the rationalisation of corrupt behaviour. An integrative review was carried out using the Whittemore and Knafl method in PubMed/PMC and ScienceDirect. The evidence found — which varies according to the populations and interventions involved (group CBT, self-guided digital CBT, CBT combined with yoga, and mindfulness-based CBT) — indicates that CBT is effective in lowering perceived stress, anxiety, and burnout; however, no study was carried out among Peruvian public managers or one that directly looked at corruption or fraud rationalisation. As rationalisation is by definition a cognitive process, it is suggested that cognitive restructuring — the main technique of CBT — has a theoretical link with this mechanism, even though this relationship has not yet been studied empirically. CBT is therefore seen as having favourable but heterogeneous support as an occupational health intervention, while its connection with institutional integrity remains a hypothesis that calls for further research.