doi: 10.56294/dm202328

SCIENTIFIC LETTER

Sri Lanka Published 234 Research Papers in Psychiatry from 2012 to 2021: Comparison with 76 Research Fields

Sri Lanka publicó 234 artículos de investigación en Psiquiatría de 2012 a 2021: Análisis de las áreas de investigación

Waseem Hassan¹ *

¹University of Peshawar, Institute of Chemical Sciences, Peshawar, Pakistan.

Cite as: Hassan W. Sri Lanka Published 234 Research Papers in Psychiatry from 2012 to 2021: Comparison with 76 Research Fields. Data & Metadata. 2023;2:28. https://doi.org/10.56294/dm202328

Submitted: 20-03-2023                          Revised: 24-03-2023                            Accepted: 31-03-2023                             Published: 01-04-2023

Editor: Prof. Dr. Javier González Argote

Dear editor:

According to Patel et al.⁽¹⁾, low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) are involved in only 3 to 4 % mental health research. Furthermore the engagements of Early Career Psychiatrists (ECPs) are also dropping.⁽²⁾

While, Rohanachandra⁽³⁾ highlighted the root causes of low research progress in psychiatry research in Sri Lanka. For the purpose they designed a questionnaire and emailed to 66 ECPs in Sri Lanka. They calculated the % of the type of studies ECPs were involved. For example, they focused on descriptive studies, qualitative studies, case-control studies, clinical trials, systematic reviews. They also presented the root causes of low research output and the suggestions to improve it. Their work is appreciated but it has a major limitation. The authors did not provide numerical data (or total number of publications) about the psychiatric research. It is also needed to compare the progress with other research fields. For the purpose the letter has been divided in two parts.

Part 1

In this part the total research output of Sri Lanka in the last ten years (2012 - 2021) was explored. The data was retrieved from Scopus database (on 08-03-2023). Total 21986 documents are published with 395157 citations or 18 citations per publications (CPP) or 1,48 Field-Weighted Citation Impact (FWCI). The highest documents are published in Medicine (n= 5704), followed by Computer Science (n= 4847), and Engineering (n= 4598). The number of publications or scholarly output (SO), citations, number of authors involved in publications, CPP and FWCI for twenty-seven (n=27) major areas are presented in table 1.

Table 1. The research papers distribution in 27 major fields
#	Subject Area	Scholarly Output	Citations	Citations per Publication	Field-weighted Citation Impact
1	Medicine	5704	193354	33,9	2,7
2	Computer Science	4847	22913	4,7	0,87
3	Engineering	4598	34888	7,6	1,1
4	Agricultural and Biological Sciences	2930	42798	14,6	1,03
5	Environmental Science	2683	53685	20	1,28
6	Social Sciences	2573	19951	7,8	0,98
7	Physics and Astronomy	1836	37631	20,5	1,75
8	Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology	1702	35098	20,6	1,12
9	Decision Sciences	1697	4984	2,9	0,8
10	Materials Science	1479	13518	9,1	1,02
11	Energy	1450	13611	9,4	1,08
12	Mathematics	1349	9214	6,8	1,1
13	Business, Management and Accounting	1092	6713	6,1	0,8
14	Earth and Planetary Sciences	893	13121	14,7	1,02
15	Chemistry	844	19301	22,9	1,02
16	Immunology and Microbiology	822	13090	15,9	0,97
17	Multidisciplinary	769	16019	20,8	0,88
18	Chemical Engineering	706	9969	14,1	1,15
19	Economics, Econometrics and Finance	586	4536	7,7	1,01
20	Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics	525	7277	13,9	0,85
21	Arts and Humanities	360	2095	5,8	0,95
22	Nursing	301	5334	17,7	1,12
23	Neuroscience	203	4862	24	1,55
24	Veterinary	189	1642	8,7	1,05
25	Health Professions	187	3992	21,3	2,03
26	Psychology	186	2402	12,9	0,95
27	Dentistry	117	1354	11,6	1,05

Table 2. The research papers distribution in 76 minor fields
#	Major Area	Minor Area	Scholarly Output	Citations	Citations per Publication	Field-weighted Citation Impact
1	Computer Science	Computer Science Applications	2157	9061	4,2	0,8
2	Computer Science	Computer Networks and Communications	2040	6989	3,4	0,68
3	Computer Science	Artificial Intelligence	1739	5200	3	0,88
4	Engineering	Electrical and Electronic Engineering	1547	10577	6,8	1,11
5	Computer Science	Information Systems	1262	5067	4	0,76
6	Decision Sciences	Information Systems and Management	1237	3113	2,5	0,74
7	Energy	Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment	963	8827	9,2	1,09
8	Medicine	General Medicine	937	105507	112,6	10,12
9	Engineering	Civil and Structural Engineering	923	5846	6,3	1,12
10	Medicine	Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health	897	15996	17,8	1,2
11	Engineering	Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering	827	4376	5,3	1,09
12	Medicine	Infectious Diseases	769	13343	17,4	1,03
13	Multidisciplinary	Multidisciplinary	769	16019	20,8	0,88
14	Energy	Energy Engineering and Power Technology	716	4754	6,6	0,95
15	Agricultural and Biological Sciences	Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics	689	10822	15,7	1,22
16	Engineering	General Engineering	646	4469	6,9	1,31
17	Mathematics	Control and Optimization	619	1879	3	0,85
18	Computer Science	Hardware and Architecture	602	2179	3,6	0,68
19	Computer Science	Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition	590	1813	3,1	0,63
20	Environmental Science	Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law	580	9544	16,5	1,12
21	Agricultural and Biological Sciences	Food Science	579	9491	16,4	0,91
22	Social Sciences	Education	579	3535	6,1	0,99
23	Engineering	Control and Systems Engineering	577	2703	4,7	0,77
24	Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology	General Biochemistry,Genetics and Molecular Biology	566	7608	13,4	0,77
25	Environmental Science	Water Science and Technology	564	10038	17,8	1,04
26	Computer Science	Software	557	3130	5,6	0,7
27	Physics and Astronomy	Instrumentation	549	3750	6,8	1,15
28	Medicine	Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health	535	3189	6	0,48
29	Environmental Science	General Environmental Science	534	10817	20,3	1,78
30	Materials Science	General Materials Science	530	6467	12,2	0,83
31	Social Sciences	General Social Sciences	504	2017	4	1,04
32	Environmental Science	Pollution	502	14311	28,5	1,23
33	Physics and Astronomy	Nuclear and High Energy Physics	502	19451	38,7	3,07
34	Environmental Science	Waste Management and Disposal	482	8086	16,8	1,06
35	Agricultural and Biological Sciences	Agronomy and Crop Science	478	6197	13	0,89
36	Engineering	Mechanical Engineering	477	5330	11,2	1,31
37	Computer Science	General Computer Science	454	3271	7,2	1,15
38	Agricultural and Biological Sciences	Plant Science	448	7853	17,5	1,21
39	Social Sciences	Geography, Planning and Development	445	7067	15,9	1,19
40	Agricultural and Biological Sciences	Animal Science and Zoology	442	3700	8,4	0,76
41	Social Sciences	Development	433	2299	5,3	0,59
42	Chemistry	General Chemistry	427	11873	27,8	1
43	Agricultural and Biological Sciences	General Agricultural and Biological Sciences	426	4762	11,2	1,08
44	Computer Science	Signal Processing	416	1702	4,1	0,68
45	Engineering	Building and Construction	416	5268	12,7	1,14
46	Materials Science	Materials Science (miscellaneous)	416	1704	4,1	1,4
47	Environmental Science	Environmental Engineering	403	14369	35,7	1,59
48	Medicine	Health Informatics	372	1492	4	0,75
49	Environmental Science	Ecology	366	8621	23,6	1,54
50	Environmental Science	Environmental Chemistry	364	15377	42,2	1,76
51	Physics and Astronomy	Condensed Matter Physics	356	4523	12,7	0,81
52	Immunology and Microbiology	Parasitology	321	4209	13,1	0,79
53	Engineering	Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality	318	1941	6,1	0,86
54	Business, Management and Accounting	Management of Technology and Innovation	313	1281	4,1	0,72
55	Economics, Econometrics and Finance	General Economics,Econometrics and Finance	308	1596	5,2	1,1
56	Decision Sciences	Decision Sciences (miscellaneous)	307	786	2,6	1,07
57	Business, Management and Accounting	Strategy and Management	288	2218	7,7	0,73
58	Agricultural and Biological Sciences	Aquatic Science	285	3697	13	0,98
59	Chemical Engineering	Process Chemistry and Technology	279	1861	6,7	1,46
60	Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology	Genetics	272	6095	22,4	1,1
61	Physics and Astronomy	General Physics and Astronomy	265	6697	25,3	1,61
62	Environmental Science	Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis	263	9563	36,4	1,24
63	Chemical Engineering	General Chemical Engineering	262	3956	15,1	0,91
64	Business, Management and Accounting	General Business,Management and Accounting	261	1482	5,7	1,13
65	Medicine	Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism	254	5529	21,8	1,16
66	Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology	Biochemistry	252	5497	21,8	1,29
67	Mathematics	Modeling and Simulation	246	1894	7,7	0,92
68	Engineering	Engineering (miscellaneous)	243	3291	13,5	1,72
69	Medicine	Psychiatry and Mental Health	234	3973	17	1,22
70	Agricultural and Biological Sciences	Soil Science	222	5358	24,1	1,26
71	Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology	Molecular Biology	218	4176	19,2	0,99
72	Materials Science	Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials	212	2048	9,7	0,93
73	Medicine	Microbiology (medical)	208	3716	17,9	0,98
74	Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology	Biotechnology	206	2996	14,5	0,89
75	Immunology and Microbiology	Microbiology	203	3860	19	1,08
76	Computer Science	Computer Science (miscellaneous)	201	1064	5,3	1,24

Part 2

In this part descriptive data of psychiatric research in Sri Lanka is provided. From 2012 to 2021, it has published 234 research papers majorly comprising of articles (n=181), reviews (n=24), letters (n=22), notes (4), errata (n=2) and 1 editorial.  All documents received 3973 citations (or 17 citations per publications/CPP) with 1,22 field weighted citation impact (FWCI). It was further compared with other research areas.

Some alarming findings were noted for example:

1. Seventy-six (n=76) fields have published at least 200 research documents (table 2). The psychiatric research occupied sixty ninth (n=69) position.

2. Furthermore 147 psychiatric documents are published with international collaborations (62,8 %), with 3166 citations. These 234 documents are published in strong collaboration with 93 countries, mostly with Australia (n77), UK (n=62), USA (n-34), India (n=26) and Pakistan (n=20).

3. Or 87 documents are published with national collaboration with only 807 citations.

4. The quality of journal can be employed to depict the quality of publications. For the purpose, Scopus has categorized all journals in seven quartile (Q) groups (from Q1 - Q7). Q1 is occupied by the top 1 %, and Q7 is occupied by journals in the 75 to 100 % group.  The per year publications details in different quartile groups are presented in the table 3. It is apparent from the data, that the highest documents are published in Q5 (32,05 %), followed by Q4 (29,9 %), and Q6 (14,53 %).

Table 3. The research papers distribution is seven quartile (Q) groups
Title	Overall	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021
Publications in top 1 % Scopus Sources	5	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	1	3
Publications in top 5 % Scopus Sources	22	1	2	1	5	1	2	0	4	2	4
Publications in top 10 % Scopus Sources	38	2	4	1	7	3	3	2	8	2	6
Publications in top 25 % Scopus Sources	108	8	5	5	14	8	8	7	16	16	21
Publications in top 50 % Scopus Sources	183	11	12	14	16	13	13	23	27	21	33
Publications in top 75 % Scopus Sources	217	16	17	16	18	15	19	26	29	25	36
Publications in top 100 % Scopus Sources	225	16	17	16	18	16	19	28	30	27	38

Some of the principal barriers in research as highlighted by Rohanachandra⁽³⁾ are lack of technical support, funding, and poor research culture. In order to improve the research output and quality, international collaborations, grants, and research infrastructure is urgently needed.

REFERENCES

1.  Patel V, Kim Y-R. Contribution of low- and middle-income countries to research published in leading general psychiatry journals, 2002–2004. The British Journal of Psychiatry 2007;190:77–8. https://doi.org/10.1192/bjp.bp.106.025692.

2.  Silberman EK, Belitsky R, Bernstein CA, Cabaniss DL, Crisp-Han H, Dickstein LJ, et al. Recruiting Researchers in Psychiatry: The Influence of Residency vs. Early Motivation. Acad Psychiatry 2012;36:85–90. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ap.10010010.

3.  Rohanachandra YM, Dahanayake DMA, Chandradasa M. What is stopping Early Career Psychiatrists (ECPs) from doing research in Sri Lanka? Asian J Psychiatr 2023;82:103466. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajp.2023.103466.

FINANCING

None.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

No conflict of interest.

AUTHORSHIP CONTRIBUTION

Conceptualization: Waseem Hassan.

Methodology: Waseem Hassan.

Software: Waseem Hassan.

Investigation: Waseem Hassan.

Original writing-drafting: Waseem Hassan.

Writing-revision and editing: Waseem Hassan.