Indian Journal of Psychiatry: Changes in instructions to contributors.

Abstract

Byline: T. Sathyanarayana Rao, Chittaranjan. Andrade The attention of authors and readers is drawn to two small but important changes that the Indian Journal of Psychiatry is implementing with immediate effect. The first change is that case reports will continue to be accepted for consideration by the Journal but, if accepted for publication, will appear only as letters to the editor; exceptions will be made only for reports that have high citation-worthiness. The second is that authors will be required to provide a complete declaration about their contributions to their submitted manuscript; this declaration will appear in the printed article. What do these changes mean and why are they necessary? With regard to the publication of case reports, the Indian Journal of Psychiatry is seeking its first impact factor rating, and this is expected in the next 1-2 years. The impact factor is calculated by dividing the number of citations to articles published in the journal (numerator] by the number of articles published in the journal (denominator) during a specified period of time, such as the past 2 years. The impact factor is a putative measure of the quality of the journal. [sup][1],[2] Case reports are rarely cited and hence seldom contribute to the numerator. However, case reports are counted among the articles published by the journal and therefore swell the denominator. Thus, case reports pull down the impact factor of the journal. [sup][3] Authors aspire to be published in journals with high impact factors; therefore, journals with low impact factors do not attract good manuscripts and consequently do not command much respect. Journals with low impact factors are also less likely to be read or purchased by libraries. [sup][1] Case reports that are published as letters to the editor do not compromise the impact factor because, whereas citations to these reports may be included in the numerator for impact factor calculation, they are not counted in the denominator. This is a win-win situation for authors and the journal editors and owners. It must also be recognized that case reports convey messages that, usually, cannot be generalized to populations of patients. By very virtue of their unusual nature, they do not usually advance knowledge in the field by much, nor do they usually carry much relevance to ordinary clinical practice. Case reports, therefore, do not justify being accorded the same space as regular studies, especially when, because of space restrictions, the publication of a case report would delay the publication of an important study to a later issue of the journal. For these reasons, all high-ranking medical journals either do not publish case reports at all or publish these only as letters to the editor. Some journals, in fact, publish case reports only in their online edition and not in the print edition. Given that the Indian Journal of Psychiatry is the longest-existing and the most prominent journal in the field of psychiatry in this country, and given that efforts are being made to secure a good impact factor, the Journal will no longer publish case reports as full papers. Rather, case reports will only be published as letters. …