OBJECTIVE: Stimulated by Finzen's critical appraisal of the actual situation of social psychiatric research in Germany an analysis of recent publications of German authors on social psychiatric topics was carried out.METHOD: Covering the years 1998 - 2000, 70 scientific journals from psychiatry and related disciplines were systematically analysed.RESULTS: A substantial proportion of research in social psychiatry is concentrated on a small number of research institutions. In German journals of general psychiatry papers dealing with social psychiatric topics are rarely found. By contrast in international, particularly in European journals the proportion of papers on social psychiatric topics originating from German authors is quite high as compared to papers on other topics. Applied research, especially research on mental health services, dominates the field. By contrast, basic research on social psychiatric issues is underrepresented. Studies using qualitative methods are almost missing. While, as traditionally, the research interest is still particularly focussed on schizophrenia, there are a number of papers dealing with other disorders, mainly with substance abuse disorders and affective disorders.DISCUSSION: The critique raised by Finzen is to a large extent supported by the results of our study. However, we still hesitate to agree with his pessimistic prognosis for the future of social psychiatric research in Germany.
Authorship Community Psychiatry