Executive Board of Directors
President: João Alberto Carvalho (PE)
Vice-President: Luiz Alberto Hetem (SP)
1st Secretary: Paulo Roberto Zimmermann (RS)
2nd Secretary: Rosa Garcia Lima (BA)
1st Treasurer - João Carlos Dias (RJ)
2nd Treasurer - Hélio Lauar de Barros (MG)
The next issue of this bulletin will also have a Spanish version
Brazilian Journal of Psychiatry Increases its Citation Index
In its second year of publication, the Revista Brasileira de Psiquiatria (Brazilian Journal of Psychiatry) was evaluated by the Thomson Reuters Institute, and its impact factor improved, even with a drop in internal citations from articles in the journal itself
The impact factor of the Revista Brasileira de Psiquiatria (RBP or Brazilian Journal of Psychiatry) increased from 1.225 to 1.318, according to the most recent evaluation by the Thomson Reuters Institute. This means that the RBP was considered the second most relevant health journal in Latin America. The official journal of the Brazilian Association of Psychiatry (ABP) was also the fourth most widely cited periodical in Latin America in all areas of knowledge, according to the citation index.
According to ABP President João Alberto Carvalho, the RBP has consolidated its position as the main scientific publication in psychiatry in Latin America. “Acknowledgement like this in the second year that the journal was included on the Thomson Reuters list reinforces the positive assessment of its editorial autonomy, encouraged by the current and previous administrations of the Brazilian Association of Psychiatry.”
The journal’s current editors are Professors Rodrigo Bressan, Beny Lafer, and Marcelo Fleck, who credit the positive results to the journal’s on-going editorial efforts. Bressan highlighted the relevance of the increase in the impact factor. “The excellent news is that we succeeded in increasing the index, even with a reduction in internal citations, from 40% to 27%.” (International citations are references made by other articles published in the journal itself).
Lafer takes a similar view. “The editorial process has remained consistent, and the quality of the articles is also very good. The increase in the number of external citations relates to the indexing itself and the impact factor obtained last year. This reflects a growing interest in the journal’s articles,” he explains. According to Lafer, the results have enhanced the international visibility of Brazilian psychiatry. The RBP had the fourth highest impact factor in Latin America among the 80 Latin American journals evaluated by the Thomson Reuters Institute. As Lafer says, “This makes us all proud.”
Marcelo Fleck attributed the results to two main factors. “It’s not only the work inside the journal itself to improve the articles with the support of the ABP Board of Directors, but also a consistent and on-going policy to encourage research based on quality work. We’re reaping the fruits of this effort,” Fleck states.
According to the President of ABP, the results demonstrate the scientific excellence of Brazilian researchers. “The increase in the impact factor is a sign of the quality of work conducted by psychiatrists all over Brazil. Brazilian psychiatry is on the vanguard of scientific output in Latin America, and is moving to expand its representative position in the international psychiatric community as a whole.”
Background
This was the second year in which the journal was included among the publications evaluated by Thomson Reuters. Last year, when Thomson Reuters included the RBP on its list for the first time, the editors’ expectations were already exceeded by the fact that the journal’s impact factor was greater than 1. In 2005, in the journal’s Editorial on the Institute for Scientific Information, or ISI (former name of the Thomson Reuters ISI), Rodrigo Bressan, Euripedes Miguel, Jair Mari, Luiz Augusto Rohde, and Marcos Mercadante commented: “Although inclusion in the ISI was a major gain, the next goal is for the RBP to reach an impact factor greater than 1 and make the journal grade ‘International A’ according to the CAPES evaluation [the official assessment of Brazilian graduate studies programs].” Thus, during the first year in which the journal was included on the Thomson Reuters list, both targets were reached, since the cutoff point for classification as an ‘International A Journal’ in the CAPES evaluation is precisely to receive an impact factor greater than 1.
João Alberto Carvalho emphasizes that the journal’s qualifications have been improved through a gradual process: “The positive position reached by the journal is a further milestone in a process that included indexing in Medline since 2003 and in the ISI itself since 2005.” According to Carvalho, such scientific progress reflects the vigorous institutional life of ABP. “With growth, investment, and improvement, our journal is also a key factor for the strength of Brazilian psychiatry and thus for the Brazilian Association of Psychiatry,” he concludes.
How the impact factor works
The impact factor is a system created by the former Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), which currently belongs to the Thomson Reuters group. The index evaluates the repercussion of scientific publications using a mathematical calculation by which the number of citations received by each publication is divided by the number of articles published. The calculation refers to a two-year period and covers only the journals indexed in the ISI.
