Central international visibility of Brazilian psychiatric publications from 1981 to 1995

Jacqueline Leta, Raphael Jacques, Ivan Figueira and Leopoldo De Meis
Additional contact information
Jacqueline Leta: Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de
Raphael Jacques: Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro
Ivan Figueira: Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro
Leopoldo De Meis: Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de

Scientometrics, 2001, vol. 50, issue 2, No 3, 254 pages

Abstract: Abstract In this study, we examine the scientific output of Brazilian psychiatry, based on the databaseof the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), publications in the 10 most important psychiatricjournals, and publications in major Brazilian journals. The number of Brazilian publications (i.e.,those carrying at least one Brazilian address) in psychiatry in the ISI database increased by 168%during the 15-year period under study (1981-1995) . Despite this growth, the relative contributionof publications in psychiatry to the country's publications in medical sciences did not change overthe 15-year period. This fraction, around 2%, remained at less than one-third of the averagecontribution of psychiatry journals to publications in medicine worldwide. The impact inferredfrom number of citations (1981-1992) shows that Brazilian articles in psychiatry were cited lessthan the world average in this field. In the 10 psychiatry journals with the highest impact,Brazilian authors published only 48 articles in the 1981-1995 period, representing only 0.2% ofthe articles in those journals. Like their American and British counterparts, Brazilian psychiatristsalso published primarily in domestic journals: 87.1% of the publications by Brazilians appeared inthe two major Brazilian psychiatric journals, compared with only 12.9% in foreign journals.Among publications in psychiatry in the ISI database, the number of articles co-authored byBrazilians with scientists from other countries increased 12.3 fold from 1981-1985 to 1991-1995,representing at the end 50% of all publications by Brazilian psychiatrists in international journals.Despite all cuts in funding for Brazilian science during the last decades, all of the articles in oursample originated in public universities, and only 10 universities were responsible for ∼70% of thepublications by Brazilian psychiatrists in our survey period. We conclude that Brazilianpsychiatric research is a subject worthy of particular concern, especially if we take into accountthe country's modest scientific performance and the socio-economic consequences of mentaldisorders in the Brazilian population.

Date: 2001
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1023/A:1010569522632 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:scient:v:50:y:2001:i:2:d:10.1023_a:1010569522632

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11192

DOI: 10.1023/A:1010569522632

Access Statistics for this article

Scientometrics is currently edited by Wolfgang Glänzel

More articles in Scientometrics from Springer, Akadémiai Kiadó
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().