Skip to main content
Key Specialties
Cardiology Diabetology Endocrinology Gastroenterology Geriatrics and Gerontology Gynecology and Obstetrics Hematology Infectious Disease Internal Medicine Nephrology Neurology Oncology Pediatrics Respiratory Medicine Rheumatology Surgery
Congress Coverage
2024 ACC Congress 2023 ESMO Congress 2023 EASD Congress 2023 ERS Congress 2023 ESC Congress 2023 EHA Congress 2023 ASCO Annual Meeting
Clinical Collections
Advances in Alzheimer’s

At a glance: The ONWARDS insulin icodec trials

A round-up of the ONWARDS phase 3 clinical trials evaluating the novel weekly insulin icodec in people with diabetes.
ADVANCED SEARCH
Log in
Top
BMC Psychiatry
Published in: BMC Psychiatry 1/2014

Open Access 01-12-2014 | Research article

Geographic trends of scientific output and citation practices in psychiatry

Authors: Artemis Igoumenou, Klaus Ebmeier, Nia Roberts, Seena Fazel

Published in: BMC Psychiatry | Issue 1/2014

Login to get access

Abstract

Background

Measures of research productivity are increasingly used to determine how research should be evaluated and funding decisions made. In psychiatry, citation patterns within and between countries are not known, and whether these differ by choice of citation metric.

Method

In this study, we examined publication characteristics and citation practices in articles published in 50 Web of Science indexed psychiatric and relevant clinical neurosciences journals, between January 2004 and December 2009 comprising 51,072 records that produced 375,962 citations. We compared citation patterns, including self-citations, between countries using standard x2 tests.

Results

We found that most publications came from the USA, with Germany being second and UK third in productivity. USA articles received most citations and the highest citation rate with an average 11.5 citations per article. The UK received the second highest absolute number of citations, but came fourth by citation rate (9.7 citations/article), after the Netherlands (11.4 citations/article) and Canada (9.8 citations/article).
Within the USA, Harvard University published most articles and these articles were the most cited, on average 20.0 citations per paper. In Europe, UK institutions published and were cited most often. The Institute of Psychiatry/Kings College London was the leading institution in terms of number of published records and overall citations, while Oxford University had the highest citation rate (18.5 citations/record).
There were no differences between the self-citation practices of American and European researchers.
Articles that examined some aspect of treatment in psychiatry were the most published. In terms of diagnosis, papers about schizophrenia-spectrum disorders were the most published and the most cited.

Conclusions

We found large differences between and within countries in terms of their research productivity in psychiatry and clinical neuroscience. In addition, the ranking of countries and institutions differed widely by whether productivity was assessed by total research records published, overall citations these received, or citations per paper. The choice of measures of scientific output could be important in determining how research output translates into decisions about resource allocation.
Literature
1.
King D: The scientific impact of nations. What different countries get for their research spending. Nature. 2004, 430: 311-316. 10.1038/430311a.CrossRefPubMed
2.
Kulkarni AV, Busse JW, Shams I: Characteristics associated with citation rate of the medical literature. PLoS One. 2007, 2 (5): e403-10.1371/journal.pone.0000403. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0000403CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral
3.
Patel V, Sumathipala A: International representation in psychiatric literature: survey of 6 leading journals. Br J Psychiatry. 2001, 178: 406-409. 10.1192/bjp.178.5.406.CrossRefPubMed
4.
Zhang M, Hedges DW, Brown BL: Global representation in psychiatric research. Int Psychiatry. 2012, 9 (4): 94-96.
5.
Theander SS, Wetterberry L: Schizophrenia in Medline 1950–2006: a bibliometric investigation. Schizophr Res. 2010, 118 (1): 279-284. 10.1016/j.schres.2009.05.013.CrossRefPubMed
6.
Lòpez-Münoz F, Vieta E, Rubio G, Garcia-Garcia P, Alamo C: Bipolar disorder as an emerging pathology in the scientific literature: a bibliometric approach. J Affect Disord. 2006, 92 (2): 161-170. 10.1016/j.jad.2006.02.006.CrossRefPubMed
7.
Lipsman N, Lozano AM: The most cited works in major depression: the ‘citation classics’. J Affect Disord. 2011, 134 (1–3): 39-44. 10.1016/j.jad.2011.05.031.CrossRefPubMed
8.
Kieling C, Hernan H, Patel V, Tyrer P, Mari JJ: A global perspective on the dissemination of mental health research. Lancet. 2009, 22 (374(9700)): 1500-10.1016/S0140-6736(09)61903-6.CrossRef
9.
Licinio J: Molecular psychiatry: the highest immediacy index in the field of psychiatry. Mol Psychiatry. 2006, 11 (4): 324-10.1038/sj.mp.4001820.CrossRefPubMed
10.
Lòpez-Münoz F, Alamo C, Rubio G, Garcia-Garcia P, Martin-Agueda B, Cuenca E: Bibliometric analysis of biomedical publications on SSRI during 1980–2000. Depress Anxiety. 2003, 18 (2): 95-103. 10.1002/da.10121.CrossRefPubMed
11.
Kecmanovic D, Hadzi-Pavlovic D: Psychiatric journals as the mirror of the dominant psychiatric model. The Psychiatrist. 2010, 34: 172-176. 10.1192/pb.bp.108.024018.CrossRef
12.
Maunder R: Using publication statistics for evaluation in academic psychiatry. Can J Psychiatry. 2007, 52 (12): 790-797.PubMed
13.
Diaz-Moran S, Tobena A: Research contributions of Spanish psychiatry (2004–2009): a bibliometric analysis of university department. Actas Esp Psiquiatr. 2011, 39 (5): 294-301.PubMed
14.
Koshinen J, Isohanni M, Paajala H, Jääskeläinen E, Nieminen P, Koponen H, Tienari P, Miettunen J: How to use bibliometric methods in evaluation of scientific research? An example from Finnish schizophrenia research. Nord J Psychiatry. 2008, 62 (2): 136-143. 10.1080/08039480801961667.CrossRef
15.
Haslam N, Lusher D: The structure of mental health research: networks of influence among psychiatry and clinical psychology journals. Psychol Med. 2011, 41 (12): 2661-2668. 10.1017/S0033291711000821.CrossRefPubMed
16.
Walter G, Hunt G, Soh N, Cleary M, Martin A: Fifty years and counting: celebrating citations to the journal. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2011, 50 (7): 636-639. 10.1016/j.jaac.2010.12.006.CrossRefPubMed
17.
Baethge C: The production and recognition of psychiatric original articles published in languages other than English. BMC Psychiatry. 2013, 13: 102-10.1186/1471-244X-13-102. doi:10.1186/1471-244X-13-102CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral
18.
Nieminen P, Rucker G, Miettunen J, Carpenter J, Schumacher M: Statistically significant papers in psychiatry were cited more often than others. J Clin Epidemiol. 2007, 60 (9): 939-946. 10.1016/j.jclinepi.2006.11.014.CrossRefPubMed
19.
Jacob JH, Lehrl S, Wolfram Henkel A: Early recognition of high quality researchers of the German psychiatry by worldwide accessible bibliometric indicators. Scientometrics. 2007, 73 (2): 117-136. 10.1007/s11192-006-1729-x. doi:10.1007/s11192-006-1729-xCrossRef
20.
Sorensen AA: Alzheimer’s disease research: scientific productivity and impact of the top 100 investigators in the field. J Alzheimers Dis. 2009, 16 (3): 451-465.PubMed
21.
Cox BJ, Wessel I, Norton GR, Swinson RP: Citation patterns in anxiety disorders research in 14 journals: 1990–1991. Am J Psychiatry. 1994, 151 (6): 933-936.CrossRefPubMed
22.
Derrick GE, Haynes A, Chapman S, Hall WD: The association between four citation metrics and peer rankings of research influence of Australian researchers in six fields of public health. PLoS One. 2011, 6 (4): e18521-10.1371/journal.pone.0018521. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0018521CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral
23.
Barak Y, Philpot M, Levy R: Citation patterns in the International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry: cultural ethnocentrism revisited?. In J Geriatr Psychiatry. 1995, 10: 1015-1018. 10.1002/gps.930101204.CrossRef
24.
West R, McIlwaine A: What do citation counts count for in the field of addiction? An empirical evaluation of citation counts and their link with peer ratings of quality. Addiction. 2002, 97: 501-504. 10.1046/j.1360-0443.2002.00104.x.CrossRefPubMed
25.
Pastercamp G, Rotmans JI, DeKleijn DVP, Borst C: Citation frequency: a biased measure of research impact significantly influenced by the geographical origin of research articles. Scientometrics. 2007, 70 (1): 153-165. 10.1007/s11192-007-0109-5.CrossRef
26.
Campbell FM: National bias: a comparison of citation practices by health professionals. Bull Med Lib Assoc. 1990, 78 (4): 376-382.PubMedPubMedCentral
27.
Kulkarni AV, Aziz B, Shams I, Busse JW: Author self-citation in the general medicine literature. PLoS One. 2011, 6 (6): e20885-10.1371/journal.pone.0020885. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0020885CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral
28.
Garfield E, Paris SW, Stock WG: HistCite™: a software tool for informetric analysis of citation linkage. Inf Technol Sci. 2006, 57 (8): 391-400.
29.
Hirsch JE: An index to quantify an individual’s scientific research output. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2005, 102 (46): 16569-16572. 10.1073/pnas.0507655102. doi:10.1073/pnas.0507655102CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral
30.
Egghe L: Theory and practise of the g-index. Scientometrics. 2006, 69 (1): 131-152. 10.1007/s11192-006-0144-7. doi:10.1007/s11192-006-0144-7CrossRef
31.
Carleton RN, Parkerson HA, Horswill SC: Assessing the publication productivity of clinical psychology professors in Canadian Psychological Association-Accredited Canadian Psychology Departments. Can Psychol 2012, Advance online publication. doi:10.1037/a0027731.,
32.
Jacso P: As we may search- comparison of major features of the Web of science, Scopus, and Google scholar citation-based and citation-enhanced databases. Curr Sci. 2005, 89 (9): 1537-1547.
33.
Kulkarni AV, Aziz B, Shams I, Busse JW: Comparisons of citations in Web of science, Scopus, and Google scholar for articles published in general medical journals. JAMA. 2009, 302 (10): 1092-1096. 10.1001/jama.2009.1307.CrossRefPubMed
34.
Bakkalbasi N, Bauer K, Glover J, Wang L: Three options for citation tracking: Google scholar, Scopus and Web of science. Biomed Digit Libr 2006, 3(7) doi:10.1186/1742-5581-3-7.,
35.
Meho LI, Yang K: Impact of data sources on citation counts and rankings of LIS faculty: Web of science vs. Scopus and Google scholar. J Am Soc Inf Sci Technol. 2007, 58 (13): 2105-2125. 10.1002/asi.20677. doi:10.1002/asi.20677CrossRef
36.
Wallace ML, Larivière V, Gingras Y: A small world of citations? The influence of collaboration networks on citation practices. PLoS One. 2012, 7 (3): e33339-10.1371/journal.pone.0033339. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0033339CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral
Metadata
Title
Geographic trends of scientific output and citation practices in psychiatry
Authors
Artemis Igoumenou
Klaus Ebmeier
Nia Roberts
Seena Fazel
Publication date
01-12-2014
Publisher
BioMed Central
Published in
BMC Psychiatry / Issue 1/2014
Electronic ISSN: 1471-244X
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12888-014-0332-6

Other articles of this Issue 1/2014

BMC Psychiatry 1/2014 Go to the issue

Research article

Attitudes of clinical staff toward the causes and management of aggression in acute old age psychiatry inpatient units

Research article

How do psychiatrists address delusions in first meetings in acute care? A qualitative study

Research article

Frequent nocturnal awakening in children: prevalence, risk factors, and associations with subjective sleep perception and daytime sleepiness

Research article

Cortical thickness in youth with major depressive disorder

Research article

The relationship of psychological reactance, health locus of control and sense of self-efficacy with adherence to treatment in psychiatric outpatients with depression

Study protocol

Effective components of feedback from Routine Outcome Monitoring (ROM) in youth mental health care: study protocol of a three-arm parallel-group randomized controlled trial