The achievements of the WPA Scientific Publications Program - 2011-2014
Authors: Michelle B. Riba
Journal: World Psychiatry (2015)

At the World Congress of Psychiatry held in Madrid in September 2014, the WPA General Assembly was provided with a report on the fulfillment of the goals of the triennium 2011-2014 under the Presidency of P. Ruiz. Included in this report was a briefing I presented on the scientific publications of the WPA. Highlights of this presentation are provided below. For the period 2011-2014, members of the WPA Operational Committee on Scientific Publications included M.B. Riba, Chair (USA), C. Leal, Co-Chair (Spain), A. Cia (Argentina), L. Lam (China), and Z. Zemishlany (Israel). The Committee met once a year over the triennium to develop an agenda, goals and deliverables. The principal goals of the WPA Publications Program have been to disseminate information about clinical care, services, and research developments in mental health care throughout the world, and to promote and give strong visibility to high quality research and practice, involving psychiatrists from all WPA zones. A major achievement of the WPA has been to produce the acclaimed journal World Psychiatry, whose editor in chief is M. Maj. This esteemed journal is published by Wiley-Blackwell, and has reached now an impact factor of 12.846, ranking number 4 among psychiatry journals worldwide. It is translated into such languages as Russian, French, Arabic, Turkish, Spanish, Chinese, and Romanian. It is indexed in PubMed, Current Contents/Clinical Medicine, Current Contents/Social and Behavioral Sciences, Science Citation Index, and EMBASE. In addition, the WPA has developed and supported publications from WPA Sections and Committees, proceedings from WPA meetings, newsletters, publications from Member Societies and books. A new relationship has just been announced between the WPA Section on Education, chaired by A. Tasman, and the journal Academic Psychiatry, Springer, whose editor in chief is L. Roberts. We continue to publish the highly successful series Evidence and Experience in Psychiatry, which compares research evidence and clinical experiences concerning the diagnosis and management of the most common mental disorders. Members of the WPA are very active in authoring books on a wide range of important psychiatric topics (see Table 1). In addition, many of the very active and productive WPA Scientific Sections have officially linked journals (see Table 2). The Secretary for Publications has given presentations at national and international meetings on how to bring ideas and work to publication. These presentations have been helpful, especially to trainees and junior members of the WPA, and we hope to continue these types of presentations at future WPA regional and thematic meetings. Future goals of the Publications Program will include helping the Scientific Sections and other WPA groups to develop innovative ideas that can be brought to publication; more use of technology; enhancement of linkages to developing countries in terms of access and development of journals and publications; and new partnerships with publishing companies which would like to work with WPA members, Member Societies, Scientific Sections, Committees and other components. We also welcome opportunities to work with patients and families in identifying ways to provide information in a timely and useful way.