Research in Psychiatry: Issues, Strategies, and Methods

This multiauthored textbook is directed to the psychiatric resident and other professionals who are interested in the issues, strategies, and methods of psychiatric research. Although the field of psychiatry has not attained the scientific rigor and clinical sophistication of some of its sister disciplines in the medical arena, considerable progress has been made in the last decade or two, and a full understanding of the types of articles that now appear in such publications as the American Journal of Psychiatry, the Archives of General Psychi­ atry, and the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry requires a fair amount of knowledge about research design and strategy. Whereas articles in psychiatric journals 20 years ago dealt mainly with psycho­ dynamic topics and utilized nonexperimental observations, today their counter­ parts are concerned mostly with psychobiology, clinical features, diagnosis, and treatment, and employ scientific experimental designs. The trend of applying scientific methodology to research in psychiatry is increasing and undoubtedly will continue to do so in the future.