The WPA website (www.wpanet.org): a living platform to improve the identity and image of the organization
Authors: Levent Küey
Journal: World Psychiatry (2014)

In a previous article 1, we reviewed the development of the WPA website since it was renewed in April 2010. In this paper, we provide an update of its content, performance and impact in the light of the latest statistics, and discuss the perspectives to improve its efficiency. The WPA website (along with the WPA News, the quarterly official news bulletin of the WPA), has been playing an important role in improving the organizational image and identity of the Association, in line with its Action Plan of 2008-2011 and that of 2011-2014. It was reconstructed both in its content and aesthetics in April 2010, with a general perspective of reaching elegancy in simplicity. The WPA Secretary General, as the editor of these media channels, monitored this route with the collaboration of the WPA Executive Committee members, the WPA Secretariat staff, and the IT staff, responsible for the technical administration. This process of renewal and reconstruction allowed to host many organizational and educational material and to achieve high performance and impact. The WPA website hosts now more than 3,500 items. These cover news on the activities of the WPA components and information on WPA Secretariat activities, scientific meetings, publications, scientific sections, and educational activities (see 2-5). Furthermore, information on the structure and work of the WPA Committees and the WPA normative instruments are posted. In addition, educational and training material of interest to clinicians, researchers and educators working in the field of psychiatry and mental health can be read. A highly visited section of the website hosts World Psychiatry, the WPA official journal, which has now an impact factor of 8.974. Current and all past issues of this journal, now ranking no. 5 out of 126 psychiatric journals, can be read and freely downloaded not only in English but also in various languages. Either full issues or individual papers or abstracts are available in Spanish, Chinese, Russian, French, Arabic, Turkish, Japanese, Polish, Romanian, and Italian. A WPA e-learning programme was developed and implemented in 2010. This program covers videos and slide sets of prominent scientific lectures and presentations from the WPA Congresses, starting with a selection from the WPA International Congress 2009, Florence. Currently, 33 lectures in video and synchronized .ppt format are uploaded. Four guidance papers, produced during the past triennium, are available on the website in several languages. They deal with steps, obstacles and mistakes to avoid in the implementation of community mental health care, how to combat stigmatization of psychiatry and psychiatrists, mental health and mental health care in migrants, and protection and promotion of mental health in children of persons with severe mental disorders. Three sets of slides, based on WPA books, are available in 18 different languages, dealing with the recognition, epidemiology, pathogenesis, cultural aspects, medical costs and management of the comorbidity of depression with diabetes, heart disease and cancer. An educational module on physical illness in patients with severe mental disorders is also available on the website in several languages. Furthermore, an online public education program, aiming to provide high-quality and reliable scientific information on mental health and psychiatry to non-professionals, is also hosted in the website. The content of these pages is in the process of improvement in collaboration with the relevant scientific sections. Results of two surveys, conducted in collaboration with WPA member societies, exploring their views about various issues concerning diagnosis and classification of mental disorders and strategies to reduce the treatment gap for mental disorders, appeal the interest of the visitors, as well as information on WPA-WHO collaborative activities (see 6, 7) and WPA-funded research projects (e.g., 8). The WPA website also hosts some essential documents for the benefit of improving the ethical and scientific quality standards of our profession: the Madrid Declaration on Ethical Standards; the WPA template for undergraduate and postgraduate education in psychiatry and mental health; recommendations for relationships of psychiatrists, health care organizations working in the psychiatric field, and psychiatric associations with the pharmaceutical industry, and recommendations on best practices in working with service users and family carers. The performance of the website is followed closely with periodic analysis. During the period between April 12, 2010 and November 12, 2013, 298,741 people have visited the WPA website, making 430,079 visits. These visits came from 218 countries/territories, practically covering all parts of the world. It is remarkable that the number of countries in which WPA has national member societies is 118. Hence, the WPA is even reaching over its organizational limits by its website. The average number of visits per day was 328, and the average number of pages per visit was 3.32. The website is continuously visited by new people, with the proportion of new visitors being nearly 70%. This is also reflected in the fact that 67% of the visitors of the website reach it via “searchengines”, while 18% via “referring sites”, and 15% using “direct traffic”. It is interesting to check the days of the week that people prefer to visit the WPA website. During the first three days of the week (Monday through Wednesday), visits are more frequent than the other four days, with an increasing trend, while from Thursday to Sunday it decreases continuously. It seems the visitors start their week by visiting the pages of the WPA website. One of the widely used criteria to measure the impact of a website is “page rank check”, a free service provided by Google. The page rank value indicates the importance of a particular website/page. Being an objective measure of its citation significance, it also corresponds well with people's subjective idea of importance. Currently, the page rank of the WPA website is 7/10 (that is, the page rank value is 7 from 10 possible points), which reflects a high impact compared to many other similar websites. Currently, the WPA website is a highly active electronic platform fulfilling two main functions at the same time: as an international “news channel” on psychiatry and mental health, and as an “archive” of training and educational materials, and basic reference documents. Considering its international character, these two functions could be improved to become more comprehensive and interactive. This is possible via advances in the relations with other international organizations in the fields of mental health and psychiatry. Giving high priority to international solidarity in psychiatry may enhance this process. In fact, a website is a highly flexible living platform, a work in progress where we can explore further improvements continuously. As the editor and the WPA Secretary General, I have been facilitating this process with the cooperation of the WPA Executive Committee members of 2008-2011 and of 2011-2014, and our past and current secretariat staff, Anna Engstrom, Francesca Sotgiu and Pamela Atiase, and our IT staff at the Istanbul-based agency SaglikBahcesi. Their enthusiasm, support, and skilful efforts are highly appreciated. I hope the visitors of the WPA website will continue to support us in improving its quality by sending their contributions and comments.