Analysis of mental health publications from Arab countries in PubMed, 1987-2002

OBJECTIVE: To perform geographical analysis of mental health publications produced in 22 Arab countries from 1987 to 2002 in PubMed, to compare the ratio of mental health to the total number of citations for each country as well as the percentage of each country’s mental health publication to the total mental health publications of the all Arab countries and to study the fields and types of mental health research publications in Arab countries during this period.

METHODS: A MEDLINE search was performed in July 2003 at the Faculty of Health Sciences, American University of Beirut to ascertain the total number of citations for each Arab country followed by another search in the MeSH database of MEDLINE for citations under the psychiatry and psychology category. The 2 search strategies were then combined by “AND” and inspected to validate its attribution to mental health research. Moreover, identifying to which mental health fields the publications of the countries were contributing.

RESULTS: The number of mental health research citations published and affiliated to the Arab countries over the last 15 years totalled 338 articles. Kuwait and Saudi Arabia published 37% of the Arab World’s mental health publications. The most dynamic mental health fields are substance abuse and depression accounting for approximately 26% of the total mental health publications.

CONCLUSION: Gulf Cooperation Council countries are very prolific in terms of MEDLINE-indexed biomedical as well as mental health research publications. Child psychiatry, especially attention deficit hyperactive disorders and child autism are not gaining much interest.