To contact the author: charlescardinal@hotmail.com Since 1980, when the first issue of the International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP) journal CRISIS was released, it contributed to add more than 600 articles on suicide knowledge and research. This study analyzes the research articles published in this journal, from 1980 to 2004, by using bibliometric techniques. Bibliometry is the application of mathematical and statistical methods to books, articles and other communication mediums. The variables studied are the authorship, geographical distribution of articles, age groups, genders, at-risk populations and their evolution through time. The citations used in articles published in the last five years are analyzed. Research questions 1. What is the contribution of each country to suicide research published in Crisis; 2. Which authors contributed the most to Crisis; 3. What is the proportion by age group, gender and at-risk groups in the topics studied in research articles; 4. What are the resources most used in research articles in Crisis from 2000 to 2004; 5. What are the most cited research articles from Crisis.

1. Twenty-five years of Crisis:
A bibliometric study of the IASP journal
Charles Cardinal, MLIS
Centre for Research and Intervention on Suicide and Euthanasia (CRISE)
Université du Québec à Montréal
Goal of this study
The goal of this study is to better understand the evolution of the suicidology
literature from the perspective of research articles published in Crisis, by
applying bibliometrics methods.
What is bibliometry
Bibliometry can be defined as the “use of statistical methods in analysis of a
body of literature to reveal the historical development of subject fields and
patterns of authorship, publication, and use.» (Young, 1983).
Bibliometry is used for library management, to evaluate or compare
performance in term of publications, evaluate the impact of publications and
journals, identify emerging or unexplored fields of research in a discipline
and help in decision-making.
David Lester 19
Jouko Lonnqvist 7
Manfred Wolfersdorf 7
Keith Hawton 6
Antoon A. Leenaars 6
Unni Bille-Brahe 5
Paul Corcoran 5
Rene F. W. Diekstra 5
Andrej Marusic 5
Konrad Michel 5
Danuta Wasserman 5
Paul S. Yip 5
Diego De Leo 4
Robert D. Goldney 4
Heidi Hjelmeland 4
Michael J. Kelleher 4
Ad J. F. M. Kerkhof 4
Armin Schmidtke 4
Tore C. Stiles 4
Most productive authors
1980-2004
Geographical Distribution 1980-2004
Research papers with old and very old people as
subjects has declined by more than 10% between
1980-84 to 2000-04
2,1% (11 authors) of all authors have published 5 to 7 articles, 5.6% (29) 3
or 4 articles, 12,5% (65) 2 articles, and 79,7% (416) only one article.
Fem
ale
all
M
ale
allFem
ale
only
M
ale
only
nd/na
62,3% 61,5%
2,7%
1,9%
35,8%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
Gender
1980-2004
Even though suicide rates are higher for men, males
and females have similar proportions of reserach
articles (difference less than 5% in some periods).
Suicide attempts 23,8%
Mental disorders 21,5%
Alcohol and drug disorders 4,6%
Bereaved 3,8%
Elderly 3,8%
Inmates 3,5%
Physical illness 3,1%
Migrants 1,2%
Sexual identity 0,8%
Indigenous 0,4%
Rural areas 0,4%
NA/ND 40,8%
At-risk groups 1980-2004
C
hildA
dolescent
A
dultM
iddle-aged
O
ld
V
ery
old
nd/na
S1
11,2%
41,9%
47,7%
36,9%
33,1%
24,6%
43,1%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
Journal Title Nbre of references
American Journal of Psychiatry 107
British Journal of Psychiatry 105
Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica 99
Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior 78
Archives of General Psychiatry 71
Crisis 58
Age groups
1980-2004
Most used resources 2000-2004
1980-84 1985-89 1990-94 1995-99 2000-04
1 author 50.0% 30.0% 26.1% 19.7% 11.3%
2 authors 35.7% 45.0% 34.8% 24.2% 35.0%
3 to 5 authors 14.3% 20.0% 30.4% 45.5% 45.0%
6 to 9 authors 0.0% 5.0% 6.5% 6.1% 7.5%
10 and more 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 4.5% 1.3%
Autorship pattern 1980-2004
Authors Title Year Citation
1 Bagley & Tremblay Suicidal behaviors in homosexual and bisexual males 1997 32
2 Diekstra Suicidal behavior in adolescents and young adults: the international picture 1989 32
3 Cleiren, Diekstra, Kerkhof et al. Mode of death and kinship in bereavement: focusing on "who" rather than "how" 1994 24
4 Leenaars Suicide across the adult life-span: an archival study 1989 23
5 Bille-Brahe, Kerkhof, De Leo et al. A repetition-prediction study on European parasuicide populations. Part II […] 1996 20
6 Hawton, Fagg, Simkin et al. The epidemiology of attempted suicide in the Oxford area, England (1989-1992) 1994 20
7 Pirkis, Burgess & Dunt Suicidal ideation and suicide attempts among Australian adults 2000 20
8 McIntosh & Kelly Survivors' reactions: suicide vs. other causes 1992 16
9 van Egmond, Garnefski, Jonker et al. The relationship between sexual abuse and female suicidal behavior 1993 16
10 Wolk-Wasserman Some problems connected with the treatment of suicide attempt patients: transference and
countertransference aspects
1987 16
International co-authorship: Collaboration between authors from different countries has expanded
since 1995-1999. We count only 4 articles between 1980 to 1994 that have co-authors from different
countries. In 1995-1999, there was 15 articles and in 2000-2004, 16 articles.
Discussion and Conclusion
Crisis is a journal recognized by suicidologists worldwide and people who are involved in suicide prevention. However there is an absence of contributions from many countries
and unequal participation. Some continents and specific area have almost no publications (e.s. South and Central America, Africa, Muslim countries). The proportion of
contributions by country does not seem to correspond to their national suicide rates. For example, Canada has a suicide rate lower (18,4 for men and 5,2 for women) than
Japan (35,2 for men and 13,4 for women) (WHO, 2004) but has 21 more publications. What could explain the fact that a country such as Russia, which has one of the highest
suicide rates (WHO, 2004), did not have any publication? Explanations of the production of published suicide research include the language (limit for the non-English speaking
countries), national investments in research, government imperatives concerning public health issues, researchers’ interests, culture, etc.
We remark that the importance of certains subjects (by age group or gender) does not correspond to the importance as indicated by suicide rates. Although males have a
higher suicide rates in most countries (WHO, 2004), we did not find more publications on males. The elderly do not have the same proportion of articles as their suicide rates.
Future research could answer the question of what pushes researchers to conduct research on a specific group.
By comparing articles in Crisis with articles from Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior (Cardinal, 2005), and other types of publication (books, grey literature), and even to
other forms of scientific communications (conferences, academic session), we may obtain more relevant information concerning the production of scientific knowledge in
suicidology. This could help directed research and identify themes and populations that are unexplored or under investigated.
Methodology
We used unidimensional bibliometric methods for this study which involves
counting specific indicators in articles.
Paper copies of each issue of the journal were used. Only research articles
have been considered. Literature reviews, theoretical articles, single case
studies were not included.
To determine the geographical origins, we used the correspondance address
of the author. If this information was not available, we used the affiliation of
the first author.
To identify the caracteristics of subjects of the research articles (age groups,
gender, at-risk groups), we examined the article. We paid a particular
attention to the sections « Description of the subjects » and tables of results.
Some articles did not mention clearly those caracteristics or had more than
one caracteristic (adolescents and adults, for example).
For age groups, we used the classification of the National Library of Medicine,
which is used in its worldwide known database, PubMed. We compared 6
groups of age, Child (12 years-old and less), Adolescent (13 to 18 years-old),
Adult (19 to 44), Middle-Aged (45 to 64), Old (65 to 79), Very Old (80 and
more).
For the at-risk groups, we refered to the Guidelines for Suicide Prevention
developped by the IASP Executive Committee, published in Crisis, vol. 24, no
4. Eleven (11) groups were identified.
To identify the resources most used by authors in Crisis, we compiled all the
references in the bibliography of those articles for the period 2000 to 2004.
For the most cited articles, we used the database Web of Science (generally
known as Citation Index).
Most cited articles 1980-2004
For resources in bibliographies that have more than 10 references (33), 64% are from
the field of psychiatry, 17.2% from suicidology, 12.4% from medicine, 6.1% from
psychology, and public health (1%).
The average
delay
between the
age of the
references
and their use
in research
articles in
Crisis is 10.3
years.
Research questions
1. What is the contribution of each country to suicide research published in
Crisis;
2. Which authors contributed the most to Crisis;
3. What is the proportion by age group, gender and at-risk groups in the
topics studied in research articles;
4. What are the resources most used in research articles in Crisis from 2000
to 2004;
5. What are the most cited research articles from Crisis.
Results
We identified 260 research articles in Crisis from 1980 to 2004. By dividing
them in to 5 five-years periods, we identified 28 articles published in 1980-
84, 40 in 1985-89, 46 in 1990-1994, 66 in 1995-99, and 80 in 2000-04.
Adolescents is the only
group that has a noticable
rise in the number of
reseach papers between the
period 1980-84 to 2000-04
(from 42,9% to 50%).
Having more authors per article may be explain by the complexity of research, more
efficient communication technologies and greater recognition of the contribution of people
who work on the research
XXIII World Congress – International Association for Suicide Prevention : Scaling the Summit – Suicidal Behaviour in Diverse Cultures 12-16 September 2005 – Durban, South Africa
CRISE is supported financially by
Correspondance:
Charles Cardinal
charlescardinal@hotmail.com
References
Cardinal, C. (2005). Three decades of Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior. Paper presented at the AAS Conference.
World Health Organisation. (2004). Suicide Global Charts. Retrieved August 22, 2005 from http://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide/charts/en/
Young, H. (Ed.) (1983). The ALA Glossary of Library and Information Science. Chicago : American Library Association.