Gureje Oye, Alem Atalay
Department of Psychiatry, University of Ibadan, Nigeria.
World Psychiatry. 2004 Oct;3(3):178-81.
Even though Africa contributes a disproportionately small quantity to the world scientific information pool, much of what it produces may be unavailable to the scientific community. A number of scientific journals published on the continent but not listed in international indexes often report studies in mental health and related fields. An analysis of some of these publications revealed that, over the period 1999-2003, research issues addressed include substance abuse, neuroscience and neuropsychiatry, health services, and child mental health. Most of the studies are descriptive and based on convenient or clinical samples. Community-based epidemiological studies and those examining the cost-effectiveness of different forms of intervention are rare. Even though the strength of the studies reported varied considerably, they nevertheless suggest that a considerable amount of research activities is taking place on the continent. The number and types of studies reported highlight the poor investment in research in Africa.
尽管非洲对世界科学信息库的贡献少得不成比例，但它所产出的许多内容可能科学界无法获取。非洲大陆出版的一些科学期刊未被列入国际索引，这些期刊经常报道心理健康及相关领域的研究。对其中一些出版物的分析表明，在1999年至2003年期间，所涉及的研究问题包括药物滥用、神经科学与神经精神病学、卫生服务以及儿童心理健康。大多数研究都是描述性的，基于便利样本或临床样本。基于社区的流行病学研究以及考察不同干预形式成本效益的研究很少见。尽管所报道研究的力度差异很大，但它们仍表明非洲大陆正在开展大量的研究活动。所报道研究的数量和类型凸显了非洲在研究方面的投资不足。
