Mapping the literature of addictions treatment

Paul M Blobaum

doi:10.3163/1536-5050.101.2.005

Abstract

This study analyzes and describes the literature of addictions treatment and indexing coverage for core journals in the field. Citations from three source journals for the years 2008 through 2010 were analyzed using the 2010 Mapping the Literature of Nursing and Allied Health Professions Project Protocol. The distribution of cited journals was analyzed by applying Bradford's Law of Scattering. More than 40,000 citations were analyzed. Journals (2,655 unique titles) were the most frequently cited form of literature, with 10 journals providing one-third of the cited journal references. Drug and Alcohol Dependence was the most frequently cited journal. The frequency of cited addictions journals, formats cited, age of citations, and indexing coverage is identified. Addictions treatment literature is widely dispersed among multidisciplinary publications with relatively few publications providing most of the citations. Results of this study will help researchers, students, clinicians, and librarians identify the most important journals and bibliographic indexes in this field, as well as publishing opportunities.

Highlights

This study uses the research methodology devised by the Task Force on Bibliographic Access for the Allied Health Literature, Nursing and Allied Health Resources Section (NAHRS) of the Medical Library Association (MLA) [1]
Addictions treatment literature is widely dispersed among multidisciplinary publications with relatively few publications providing most of the citations
The new medical specialty of addiction medicine, a residency program recently established by the American Board of Addiction Medicine, indicates new recognition of the importance of addiction treatment, and this may influence medical school and nursing and allied health curricula

Summary

Introduction

This study uses the research methodology devised by the Task Force on Bibliographic Access for the Allied Health Literature, Nursing and Allied Health Resources Section (NAHRS) of the Medical Library Association (MLA) [1]. This NAHRS task force was formed in 1993 to study the literature of allied health fields in order to identify core journals in a discipline, ‘‘core’’ being defined as those journals that are most significant and important for scholarly communication in a subject and valuable for a library’s research collection. Schloman described the project’s original rationale: Because bibliographic references that appear in journal articles provide a measurable path of information transfer occurring within a field, it is possible to assess quantitatively the characteristics of the literature of that field: the type of literature used, its currency, the core journals, and the extent of dispersion of the journal literature. [2]

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion