Garcia-Silberman, S; Arana, D; Martinez, R; Infante, R;, Jimenez, A. "Research of epidemiological and psychosocial aspects of mental health; A bibliometric 8 Analysis" Salud Mental 27(5). October 2004. p.8-22

[Eugene Garfield]

E-mail:
S. Garcia-Silberman : cisma at unp.edu.mx


TITLE:          Research of epidemiological and psychosocial aspects of
                mental health: A bibliometric 8 analysis. (Article, Spanish)
AUTHOR:         Garcia-Silberman, S; Arana, D; Martinez, R; Infante, R;
                Jimenez, A
SOURCE:         SALUD MENTAL 27 (5). OCT 2004. p.8-22 INST MEX
                PSIQUIATRIA, MEXICO CITY

SEARCH TERM(S):  GARFIELD E  rauth; BIBLIOMETR*  item_title;
                 GARFIELD E         SCIENCE               178:471   1972;
                 GARFIELD E         NATURE                227:669   1970;
                 SALUD MENT  source_abbrev_20

KEYWORDS:       bibliometry; psychosocial research; mental health
KEYWORDS+:       GENERAL PSYCHIATRIC JOURNALS; DISORDERS; SCIENCE; TRENDS

ABSTRACT:       The main objective of this paper is to describe the most
important characteristics of the scientific work developed at the
Direccion de Investigaciones Epidemiologicas y Psicosociales (DIEP) from
the Instituto Nacional de Psiquiatria Ramon de la Fuente (INPRF), using
printed material as an indicator to evaluate productivity.

We consider important to make a descriptive and critical analysis of the
development of knowledge generated and disseminated with the purpose of
having it as a base for planning future activities after twenty-five
years of scientific activity in epidemiological and psychosocial research.

Bibliometric analysis is a tool developed to perform quantitative studies
of printed matter; it seeks to show numbers related to research
activities through description of printed publications in a particular
field.

On this paper, we are trying to give a panoramic view of the different
topics, the specific population groups studied, the methods used, as well
as the different pathways and tendencies in these twenty-five years. This
allows for the identification of particular fields that have been
underestimated and which can be considered as starting point for the
development of future research.

The analysis of each document has been defined in three basic aspects:
content, authors, and dissemination media used. This strategy made it
possible for us to know the amount of the production and its quantitative
and qualitative characteristics in terms of type of publication, the
country where it was published, the assignment and nationality Of the
authors, the number of authors by article, the type of research and its
subject matter, the population studied, and the amount of publications
per year.

All the material used in this study belongs to a bibliographic database
(BIBLISMAD), which is permanently updated and which gathers more than
5000 references of research reports published in Mexico or by Mexican
researchers, among them all those who are or were part of the DIEP.

All the references corresponding to documents that had been published
were considered, including articles in journals, book chapters, complete
books, manuals and reasearch instruments.

References corresponding to unpublished works, summaries in memories and
communications presented in congresses were excluded. The selection of
the material was carried out considering the fact that at least one of
the authors was assigned to the DIET when the paper was published or
during the period when the research was performed.

The bibliographic material was analyzed considering different aspects of
each one in the manner of variables. This way we registered the type of
publication (full book, manual, article in journal, book chapter,
instrument, and report), the type of article (empiric research, review,
and essay), the country of the journal or book, the number of authors by
paper, articles where the main author was part of the DIEP, assignment of
the authors (researcher form the DIEP, external national researcher, and
external foreign researcher), the type of empirical research performed
(quantitative or qualitative), the field of research (mental health or
addictions), and the population under study (children, adolescents,
adults, and elderly people).

Apart from mere quantification and the kind of papers published, we
considered a qualitative analysis as a very important aspect. In this
case, we worked with the contents of each manuscript to identify general
areas, particular topics, methods applied, populations researched, and
the media chosen to publish. With this, we attempted to obtain indicators
of the relative weight of each item.

For this study, we analyzed an overall of 1457 works published between
1978 and 2003. Results are presented according to the type of
publication, the authorship, and the main topic.

The analysis allowed building a map of the research performed by the DIEP
in the last twenty-five years. We found that most of the material
corresponded to articles in scientific journals, most of them Mexican,
almost a third American, and a fifth European. Regarding language, more
than a half of the articles are in Spanish, nearly 40% are in English and
small percentages are in French and Portuguese. As for the specialty of
the publications, most of them were published in psychology, psychiatry,
mental health, and addiction journals. Nevertheless, due to the
characteristics of psychosocial research, 24% of the papers were
published in different medic magazines (general practice, public health,
epidemiology, pediatrics, geriatrics, AIDS treatment, biomedical
sciences, gynecology, cancerology, neurology, nutrition, perinatology,
sexuality and reproductive health), 17% in social sciences and humanities
journals (culture, education, adolescence, anthropology, social work,
family), and 3% in science and technology magazines.

Tendencies in productivity were satisfactory, with variations related to
the nature of research, which is devoted to data collection and analysis
in some periods and in others to the publication of results. Broadly
speaking, there was an increase in productivity. This increase was more
obvious between 1984 and 1994, which may be explained by an institutional
growth in terms of financial and human resources. This growth tended to
stabitize in the last decade, in spite of which productivity has not
stopped growing.

When we analyzed data related to authorship, there was a marked
leadership on the side of the DIEP researchers: 90% of the articles
published had a researcher from the DIEP as the main author. In the other
hand, there were 286 co-authors from Mexico and 204 from other countries,
which is a sign of the great interest to work with different groups from
institutions all over the country and overseas. Although the production
average level seems to be low, this is explained by the fact that many
authors have collaborated temporally as post-graduate students, students
writing their dissertation, and students in social service.

One indicator of the important role of the DIEP as a generator of
original knowledge in mental health and addiction fields is the high
percentage of papers reporting results of researches developed by this
area of the institute. The frequency of quantitative methods is a reflex
of the predominance of this perspective in science, and in health
sciences particularly. However, the growing development that qualitative
and mixed methods have had during this last decade is noteworthy. This
implies an enrichment of the amount and out reach of the knowledge
generated in our field of work.

The diversity of topics allows for a thought about the great advance
experienced by mental health in recent years, especially in epidemiologic
and psicosocial regards. However, it must be said that there are still
many challenges to face.

AUTHOR ADDRESS: S Garcia-Silberman, Inst Nacl Psiquiatria Ramon de la
                Fuente, Direcc Invest Epidemiol & Psicosociales, Ctr
                Informac Salud Mental & Adicciones, Calz Mexico Xochimilco
                101,San Lorenzo Huipulco,T, Mexico City 14370, DF, Mexico

IDS Number: 873SV
ISSN: 0185-3325

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