Article Title: Sharing Mental Health Research Amongst Low And Middle-Income Countries. Is There A Role For A Journal Of Mental Health In Developing Countries?
Author(s): Saeed Farooq
Institute(s): Department of Psychiatry, PGMI, Lady Reading Hospital, Peshawar
Journal: Journal of Pakistan Psychiatric Society, 2007; 4(2): 69-70
Correspondence Address: sfarooqlrh@yahoo.com
The state of research and scientific publications from Low and middle income countries (LAMIC) has been highlighted as one of the most significant hurdle in meeting the challenge of an enormous burden of mental health problems in these countries. A number of studies have shown that mental health research publications from developing countries constitute only small proportion of the total research output on mental health from the world.
Journals published from developing countries can help to overcome this information gap but these are facing insurmountable hurdles. A recent WHO statement has described these problems succinctly: “A major impediment in accessing mental health research from low and middle income countries is the lack of visibility of journals published in these countries. Most of them are not indexed in international databases and are often not available beyond their country or region of origin. These journals are published under strained circumstances, in that they often lack sound financial support and have a hard time becoming selfsufficient. They also have difficulty in obtaining suitable articles for publication because their author pool is limited; moreover, influential authors from this pool prefer to publish their best research in indexed journals”.
