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Professor Derek W. Johnston Room G37 - William Guild Building University of Aberdeen School of Psychology Aberdeen, Scotland, UK AB24 2UB Email: d.johnston@abdn.ac.uk Phone: +44 (0)1224 273004

• Professor of Psychology, School of Psychology, College of Life Sciences and Medicine, University of Aberdeen.
• PhD (University of Hull); MA (University of Aberdeen)
• Chartered Health Psychologist; Chartered Clinical Psychologist.
• Associate British Psychological Society
• Fellow of the Society of Behavioural Medicine
• Member of the Academy of Behavioural Medicine Research
• Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh

Research Interests

My main research is in health psychology and in psychophysiology and I have a secondary interest in the treatment of anxiety disorders. My current research focuses in stress in health professionals and on cardiovascular disease.   Most of my work is directed at informing psychological interventions designed to improve health and evaluating such interventions.

My current work is conducted in collaboration with colleagues and students in Aberdeen and research groups in Dundee [Martyn Jones, Marion McMurdo, Alan Struthers],  Fife NHS [Mike Dow], Oxford [David Mant], Cambridge [Anne Louise Kinmonth], Queensland [Justin Kenardy], Stanford [Barr Taylor], Portugal [Teresa McIntyre, Scott McIntyre].

Current research focus

Healthcare: stress in health professionals

Health professionals have  demanding jobs which are often associated with significant distress, burnout and ill health. I have been investigating stress in health care professionals with Dr Martyn Jones in the University of Dundee and, in Portugal, with Dr Scott McIntyre (ISMAI  Instituto Superior da Maia) and Dr Theresa McIntyre (University of Minho).   Our main innovations in measurement in these projects is the use of electronic methods of ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to assess distress and its possible determinants throughout the working day. We are also continuing to develop a measure of stress in nurses which we published previously (Jones M.C., & Johnston, D.W. (1999)  The derivation of a brief nurse stress index.  Work & Stress; 13:161-181).  We examine the psychological, educational and vocational factors that are associated with distress, job dissatisfaction and health in cross sectional and longitudinal studies of nurses in training and practising health professionals.  Theories that guide this work include  Karasek’s Demand Control model and Siegrist’s Effort Reward Imbalance Model. We have also evaluated the practical effects of intervention and in 2000 we reported a randomised trial of a form of stress management which successfully reduced distress in distressed student nurses, even when taking their final examination (Jones M.C & Johnston, D.W.  (2000). Evaluating the impact of a worksite stress management programme for distressed student nurses: a randomised controlled trial. Psychology and Health. 15, 689-706)

Cardiovascular Disease:  determinants and consequences.

It is commonly held that cardiovascular disease is to some extent determined by stress or personality or some interaction of both in vulnerable individuals; and it is generally accepted that cardiovascular disease is associated with modifiable distress and disruption to life.

We study the effects of psychological stress on the cardiovascular system in healthy volunteers both in the laboratory and in real life.  In a series of studies we have examined the relationship between reactivity to laboratory and real life stressors (e.g.,

Johnston, D.W., Schmidt, T., Vagt, S., McSorley, K., Albus, C., Klingmann, I., Bethge, H. (1994). The relationship between cardiovascular reactivity in the laboratory and heart rate responsiveness in real life: Active Coping and ß blockade. Psychosom. Med., 56, 369-376;  Jain, A., Schmidt, T.F.H., Johnston, D.W., Brabant, G., & von zur Muhlen, A. (1998). The relationship between heart rate and blood pressure reactivity in the laboratory and in the field: evidence using continuous measures of blood pressure, heart rate and physical activity. J Psychophysiology, 12, 362-275.).  We are currently studying public speaking in an academic context as a real life stressor using both ambulatory cardiovascular measurement and the electronic EMA methods we developed in our studies of health professionals.   A PhD student, Yong Pen Why, is conducting studies of relationship between cardiovascular reactivity and aspects of hostility.   With colleagues we have developed methods of measuring activity and posture in real life situations (see Tuomisto, M.T., Johnston, D.W. & Schmidt, TFH. (1996). A comparison of continuous measures of posture, thigh acceleration and muscle tension and their relationship to heart rate. Psychophysiology, 33, 409-415.) and we have  worked for some time  on an interactive heart rate monitor which detects periods of excessive heart rate in real life (see Johnston, D.W. (1996) Improving control and psychological event detection during ambulatory cardiovascular recording. In J Fahrenberg & M Myrtek (Eds) Ambulatory  assessment: computer assisted psychological and psychophysiological methods in monitoring  and field studies.  Hogrefe & Huber, Seattle, pp 129-140) We use a variety of theories in this work and we have suggested that chronic stress is most likely to affect the gradual processes of arterial deterioration while acute stress may have its effects on the catastrophic processes immediately before and during a myocardial infarction (Johnston DW (2002) Acute and chronic psychological processes in cardiovascular disease.  In ,Schaie,K.W., Leventhal,H.,  & Willis,S.L., Eds. Effective health behavior in older Adults, New York, Springer. pp 55-64)

The increasingly large numbers of patients who have survived a myocardial infarction or have developed heart failure present a major challenge to the healthcare system.  We are examining the determinants of health and illness behaviours in such patients and are involved in various studies to alter such behaviours.  In collaboration with Professors David Mant (University of Oxford) and Ann-Louise Kinmonth (University of Cambridge) we have recently shown that Perceived Behaviour Control predicts activity, fitness and smoking cessation 12 months after an MI (Johnston, DW, Johnston, M, Pollard, B, Kinmonth, AL, Mant, D (In Press) Motivation is not enough: Prediction of risk behavior following diagnosis of coronary heart disease from the theory of planned behavior. Health Psychology).  With Professors Marion McMurdo and Alan Struthers of the University of Dundee and a PhD student, Chuan Gao, we are currently using the Theory of Planned Behaviour to predict exercise and activity in older patients with congestive heart failure.  Gerry Molloy, a PhD student, is examining carer burden in the informal carers of  patients with CHF. We developed and tested an effective nurse led intervention which was very effective in patients after an MI and their spouses (Johnston M, Foulkes J, Johnston DW, Pollard B, Gudmundsdottir H. (1999) The impact on patients and partners of inpatient and extended counseling and rehabilitation: a controlled trial: Psychosomatic Med  61, 225-233) and we working with McMurdo and Struthers on a trial of exercise in congestive heart failure.     

Anxiety Disorders

With colleagues in Scotland, Australian & the USA We have recently published an international multi-centre trial of computer assisted cognitive behaviour therapy for panic disorder (Kenardy, J.A., Dow, M.G.T., Johnston, D.W., Newman, M.G., Thomson, A., & Taylor, C.B. (2003). A comparison of delivery methods of cognitive behavioral therapy for panic disorder: an international trial. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 71, 1068-1075)