''The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry/La revue canadienne de psychiatrie'' is a monthly
peer-reviewed
Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work (peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review ...
medical journal
A medical journal is a peer-reviewed scientific journal that communicates medical information to physicians, other health professionals. Journals that cover many medical specialties are sometimes called general medical journals.
History
The first ...
published originally by the
Canadian Psychiatric Association
Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
. Since January 2015 it has been published by SAGE. It covers all aspects of psychiatry. Articles are published in English or French, with abstracts in both languages. The journal publishes
original research
Research is "creativity, creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular att ...
papers,
systematic review
A systematic review is a Literature review, scholarly synthesis of the evidence on a clearly presented topic using critical methods to identify, define and assess research on the topic. A systematic review extracts and interprets data from publ ...
s, book reviews, letters to the editor, and official position papers, position statements, policy papers, and clinical practice guidelines of the Canadian Psychiatric Association.
History
The journal was established in January 1956 as ''The Canadian Psychiatric Association Journal/La revue de l'association canadienne de psychiatrie''. The journal started as a quarterly publication, under its founding editor-in-chief, F. Rhodes Chalke. He was succeeded in 1972 by
Frederick Lowy
Frederick Hans Lowy, (born 1933) is a Canadian medical educator and former President and Vice-Chancellor of Concordia University.Edward Kingstone took over as editor in 1977. The journal obtained its current name in 1979. He was succeeded in 1995 by
Quentin Rae-Grant
Quentin is a French male given name from the Latin first name ''Quintinus'', diminutive form of ''Quintus (praenomen), Quintus'', that means "the fifth".Albert Dauzat, ''Noms et prénoms de France'', Librairie Larousse 1980, édition revue et com ...
, who remained until 2004. In 2004, the journal started publishing monthly. Joel Paris became editor-in-chief in October 2004, continuing this role for 10 years. The current editor is Scott Patten, who has been in this role since 2014 The journal published 14 issues per year in 2005 and 2006, but returned to a monthly frequency in 2007. An electronic version of the journal was launched in January 2012. Because of the advertising, web access was restricted to members only in 2012 to avoid direct-to-consumer advertising. Articles had been freely accessible since 2002. In 2013, paid subscribers were also allowed access. As the Journal is now published by SAGE, access is governed by that company's policies. All members of the Canadian Psychiatric Association receive a subscription as a membership benefit.
The complete archive of the journal from 1956 to the present is available online. Full-text articles had been freely accessible since 2002. However, in January 2012, online access was restricted for six months, except for members of the Canadian Psychiatric Association who get immediate online access. In 2013, subscribers were allowed immediate online access.
Notable articles
Examples of highly cited articles (>200 times) published in the journal are:
* This review examined mechanisms of action of the atypical antipsychotic medications, emphasizing features of their pharmacology relevant to their profile of adverse effects.
* This was a critical review of
nosological
Nosology () is the branch of medical science that deals with the classification of diseases. Fully classifying a medical condition requires knowing its cause (and that there is only one cause), the effects it has on the body, the symptoms that ...
issues related to bipolar disorder. It also proposed diagnostic criteria for bipolar spectrum disorders, making a unique contribution to the latter topic.
* This review, by one of the developers of the Toronto Alexithymia Scale, examined literature concerned with
alexithymia
Alexithymia is a personality trait characterized by the inability to identify and describe emotions experienced by oneself. The core characteristic of alexithymia is marked dysfunction in emotional awareness, social attachment, and interpersonal ...
(an inability to identify and describe ones' emotions). The review summarized evidence that alexithymia reflects deficits in the cognitive processing and regulation of emotions. Implications for future research, and for psychotherapy, were identified.
* This was a retrospective cohort study that evaluated mortality in a cohort with schizophrenia by linkage to a national mortality registry. A 20-fold increase in the risk of suicide was found, but elevated mortality due to other causes was also identified. Overall, the risk of mortality was doubled and it was estimated that life expectancy was diminished by approximately 20 years.
* In this study,
cholecystokinin-tetrapeptide
Cholecystokinin tetrapeptide (CCK-4, Trp- Met- Asp- Phe-NH2) is a peptide fragment derived from the larger peptide hormone cholecystokinin. Unlike cholecystokin which has a variety of roles in the gastrointestinal system as well as central nervou ...
(CCK-4) and placebo were administered to 11 panic disorder patients. CCK-4 (but not placebo) was found to induce panic attack identical to the spontaneous panic attacks that occur in people with panic disorder.