Analysis of Evolution and Research Focus in Chinese Psychiatry Field

Abstract

While a large number of representative scientists devoted in the field of psychiatry, their scientific research productions came into being. We selected all related 982 documents from Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-Expanded) in Web of Science during from 1983 to 2012 and utilized the information visualization software (CiteSpace â…¢ ) to conduct co-citation and hierarchal clustering analysis to mapping knowledge domain of development and evolution. From the evolution in Chinese psychiatry field, there were divided into two stages. Through hierarchal clustering analysis, the research foci in Chinese psychiatry field were mainly mental health service, diagnostic criteria of mental disorder and psychopathology and neuropathology of mental disorder, ect. Based on the results, the evolution and research foci in Chinese psychiatry field not only help researchers find the research direction and the gap with the world, but also offer reasonable suggestions as the basis of making polices to guide psychiatry research and provide scientific evidences on preventing and curing mental disorder effectively.