Research Article
Trends in Scientific Publications on Mental Health Problems in Paediatric Journals
Vinod Kolimarala, Nicola Clarke
Correspondence Address :
Vinod Kolimarala
Department of Undergraduate Medical Education
Epsom & St. Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust
Wrythe lane, Sutton, Carshalton SM5 1AA
UK
Email: vkolimarala@doctors.org.uk
Received on: July 07, 2017, Accepted on: July 20, 2017, Published on: July 25, 2017
Citation: Vinod Kolimarala, Nicola Clarke (2017). Trends in Scientific Publications on Mental Health Problems in Paediatric Journals
Copyright: 2017 Vinod Kolimarala, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits
unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Objective: To investigate the quantity, quality, geographic location and trends of publications on mental health conditions in the official journals of Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) and American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) for paediatric trainees in the UK and the USA.
Methods: Articles from Archives of Disease in Childhood (ADC) and Pediatrics - two official journals for paediatric trainees in the UK and the USA - were retrieved by reviewing each monthly issue of the journals from January 2014-December 2016. All articles except conference abstracts, letters, news and corrections were included. The geographical location, article type and topic of the publication were analysed.
Results: In total, 146 publications on mental health conditions were published in these two journals in three years. 121 of these publications were in Pediatrics and 25 in ADC.
The most common topics covered were attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) (16%) and autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) (15%). The majority (68%) were observational studies; cohort, cross sectional and case-control studies. Most of the publications were from the USA (67%) followed by the UK (8%) and Australia (8%).
Conclusions: In both of the paediatric journals, publications relating to mental health mostly originated from the USA and studies were predominantly observational in nature. The commonest topics were ADHD and ASD with very few publications on post-traumatic stress disorder, gaming and pharmacotherapy.