Academic psychiatry journals in South Asian countries: most from India, none from Afghanistan, Bhutan and the Maldives

Abstract

BackgroundAs journals play a crucial role in the dissemination of knowledge, reviewing the psychiatry journals would illustrate the mental health research status. AimsWe aimed to identify and assess the academic journals in psychiatry from South Asian countries. MethodsWe searched on Google to identify the currently functioning psychiatry journals from South Asian countries. We used “psychiatry journals in South Asia”, “mental health journals in South Asia” as search terms. We also searched by individual country names (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka). ResultsA total of 19 psychiatry journals were identified and reviewed from five countries; one each from Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka while 15 journals from India. Only three journals (15.8%) are indexed in PubMed, four journals (21%) in Scopus, and one in Web of Science inclusively. Major indexation was only found in the journals of India. Indian Journal of Psychiatry appears to be the oldest and currently leading mental health journal in the region. Conclusions The review revealed that South Asia has a noticeable deficit in a high-quality academic research publishing system in psychiatry on its own despite the region caters to about a quarter of the global population.