Publication trends in high impact journal: the case of World Psychiatry

Abstract

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the bibliometric characteristics of papers published in a high impact journal World Psychiatry during the period 2006-2015.

Design/methodology/approach
The data for this study were obtained from Thompson Reuters’ “Web of Science”. Publication details were extracted for the journal title “World Psychiatry”. This study covers authorship patterns, annual growth, impact factors, document types, top contributors, international collaborations, highly cited papers and keyword analyses. Software programs such as “Histcite”, “intcoll.exe”, “Pajek” and “Leximancer” were used to analyze the publications.

Findings
More than half of the publications were by editorial materials and number of publications from low and middle income countries is very low when compared to proportion of editorial board members. Almost 40 per cent of papers came from the USA and editorial board members had considerable number of papers. Kings College London led the institutions.

Originality/value
Analysis of high impact journals in the field of psychiatry has been carried out in a very few. Hence, the results of this study will be useful to compare with other journals.