Barriers to Impact Factor Growth in Two Major Psychiatry Journals in India

Migita D'cruz; Chittaranjan Andrade

doi:10.1177/0253717620928016

Barriers to Impact Factor Growth in Two Major Psychiatry Journals in India

Indian J Psychol Med. 2021 May;43(3):241-245. doi: 10.1177/0253717620928016. Epub 2020 Jul 7.

Authors

Migita D'cruz¹, Chittaranjan Andrade²

Affiliations

¹ Geriatric Psychiatry Unit, Dept. of Psychiatry, National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India.
² Dept. of Clinical Psychopharmacology and Neurotoxicology, National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India.

Abstract

Background: Despite exponential growth in Indian research, Indian journals have low impact factors. A previous study by one of the authors (CA) of this paper showed that articles published in the Indian Journal of Psychiatry (IJP) under-referenced previously published relevant papers in the same journal. Based on this, we decided to investigate the citation characteristics of contemporary scientific articles published in the Indian Journal of Psychological Medicine (IJPM).

Methods: The citation characteristics of scientific articles published in 2018 (Vol 40, issues 1-6) in the IJPM were examined to determine how well the authors cited relevant articles published during the past ten years in the IJPM and the IJP.

Results: There were 145 and 142 citation-worthy articles in the IJPM and the IJP, respectively; of these, 85.5% and 65.5%, respectively, had not been cited.

Conclusions: Authors publishing in the IJPM under-reference previous relevant research published in the IJPM and IJP. This suggests unawareness of, deliberate disregard of, or even disdain for prior Indian research in the field. Additionally, if Indian researchers do not cite previous Indian research in the field published in Indian journals, the citation metrics of Indian journals will not grow.

Keywords: Impact factor; Indian Journal of Psychiatry; Indian Journal of Psychological Medicine; Indian psychiatry; Indian research; citation indices.