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Schizophrenia Research in India: A Scientometric Assessmentof India’s

Publications during 1990-2019

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DOI: 10.1016/j.ajp.2020.102521

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Asian Journal of Psychiatry

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ajp

Schizophrenia research in India: A scientometric assessmentof India’s

publications during 1990–2019
Sandeep Grover a, *, B.M. Gupta b, *, S.M. Dhawan c
a
Department of Psychiatry, Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, India
b
Formerly with CSIR-NISTADS, New Delhi, 11012, India
c
Formerly with CSIR-NPL, New Delhi, 11012, India

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: The present study examined India’s publications (2803) on schizophrenia, using various bibliometric indicators
Schizophrenia disorder during 1990− 2019. The study focuses on the number of publications, and citations received by the papers on
Mental disorders schizophrenia, published by authors affiliated to Indian institutes by using Scopus data base. Additionally, an
Indian publications
attempt was made to evaluate the performance of India’s leading organizations and authors, and inter-
Scientometrics
Bibliometrics
collaborative linkages between them. Scopus database include publications of Indian Journal of Psychiatry
and Indian Journal of Psychological Medicine from 2009 and 2011. Accordingly, the publications in these
journals were included after these years. Analysis of the publications showed that India is globally ranked at 13th
position in number of publications on schizophrenia with 2.04 % global share, depicting 14.21 % annual growth,
with 22.8 % of publications having international collaboration. Publications from India published during the
period of 1990− 2019, registered a citation impact per paper (CPP) of 13.3. National Institute of Mental Health
and Neurosciences, Bangalore (671 papers), Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chan­
digarh (271 papers) and Central Instittue of Psychiatry, Ranchi (136 papers) were the most productive institutes.
However, the most impactful organizations in terms of citation per paper (CPP) and relative citation index (RCI),
Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore (77.27 CPP and 5.78 RCI), Schizophrenia Research Foundation, Chennai
(31.16 CPP and 2.55 RCI) and Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi (29.21 CPP and 2.18 RCI) were at the top. In
terms of Individual authors, G. Venkatasubramanian (180 papers), and B.N. Gangadhar (162 papers) were the
most productive authors and R.Thara (31.87 CPP and 2.38 RCI), B.K. Thelma (24.0 CPP and 1.8 RCI), M.S.
Keshavan (23.91 CPP and 1.79 RCI) were the most impactful authors, among the top 15 authors. The journals
which reported comparatively higher productivity for Indian publications included Indian Journal of Psychiatry
(242 papers), followed by Asian Journal of Psychiatry (214 papers) and Indian Journal of Psychological Medicine
(103 papers). In terms of most impactful Indian publications, these were published in The Lancet (97.7), Progress
in Neuro Psychopharmacology & Biological Psychiatry (50) and Schizophrenia Bulletin (44.67).

1. Introduction
Schizophrenia is one of the common and devastating mental disor­
ders. According to 2017 estimate there were 3.5 million (95 % UI
3.0–4.0) people with schizophrenia in India. Among the various mental
disorders, schizophrenia was the fourth highest (9.8 %, 7.7–12.4)
contributor to the disability adjusted life years (DALYs) in 2017. The
crude prevalence and DALY rate of schizophrenia increased in India
from 1990 to 2017 (India State-Level Disease Burden Initiative Mental
Disorders Collaborators, 2020).
Considering it to be a severe mental disorder with significant
negative consequences for the patients and their caregivers, researchers
all across the globe (including India), have been interested in under­
standing various aspects of this devastating disorder. Researchers from
India have contributed significantly in challenging the Kraepelinian
concept of poor prognosis of schizophrenia (Kulhara et al., 2010). There
are different ways to understand the contribution of researchers from a
country towards a particular disorder with scientometric being one of
them. Few attempts have been made to understand the schizophrenia
research from different parts of the world by using this approach.
Morlino et al. (1997) examined the global schizophrenia research (943
records) in eight identified scientific sub-fields, as indexed in Archives of

* Corresponding author at: Formerly with CSIR-NISTADS, New Delhi, 11012, India.
E-mail addresses: bmgupta1@gmail.com (B.M. Gupta), smdhawan@yahoo.com (S.M. Dhawan).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajp.2020.102521
Received 4 July 2020; Received in revised form 9 December 2020; Accepted 10 December 2020
S. Grover et al.
General Psychiatry, the British Journal of Psychiatry and the Australian &
New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry during 1980− 94. Theander and
Wetterberg (2010) studied the schizophrenia publications share in total
medical publications across few parameters, using Medline database
during 1950–2006. Janaarthanan & Nithyanandam (2019) examined
1075 global publications on childhood onset schizophrenia in terms of
growth rate, authorship pattern, collaborative profile, leading countries,
institutions, and journals during the years 2009–18.
At the national Level, Koskinen et al. (2008) examined Finnish
schizophrenia research (265 records) during 1996–2005 on: growth
rate, international cooperation, performance of organizations and
scholars. Among other related studies, few scholars examined (i) trends
in global literature (161 records) on “motivation in schizophrenia
literature” during 1956–2017 [Najas-Garcia et al., 2018], (ii) “Utilizing
magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in schizophrenia research” publi­
cation trends [Li and Gang, 2020], and (iv) China’s schizophrenia
nursing research (1486 records), using various bibliometric indicators
during 2010–14 [Zhang and Liu, 2015].
For analyzing schizophrenia research from a country, it is necessary
to understand its structure, characterstics and trends and this can be
understood by bibliometrically assessing its research output both at
global and national level. At India‘s level, we need to particularly assess
the schizophrenia research output to understand its present status,
identify the sub-fields and existing strength of institutions and authors,
identify the areas requiring more attention and plan for the future.
Although, one study by Gupta and Bala, 2013, has been undertaken in
the past covering 2002–11 (10 years), but it does not provide a broader
picture and wider trends over different time period in this field. The
present study, therefore, extends this study both in terms of parameters
studied and period covered (30 years).
In this background, the objective of the present study was to examine
performance of India’s research on schizophrenia during the period
1990− 2019. In particular, the study analyses: (i) the global research
output and the publication output of top 10 most productive countries in
schizophrenia research; (ii) India’s research output - its annual growth
rate, global share, citation impact, extent of international collaboration,
the publication productivity and citation impact of top India’s organi­
zations, authors and collaborative linkages between them, the distri­
bution of papers by source journals and identification of most productive
and impactful journals an characteristics of highly cited papers.
2. Materials and methods
The publications data on schizophrenia research was retrieved and
downloaded for the present study from the Scopus database (htt
p://www.scopus.com) covering the period 1990− 2019. The Scopus is
an international multidisclinary abstract and citation database devel­
oped by Elsevier Science and is considered as the most comprehensive
database for bibliometric analysis. The retrieval strategy used for the
analysis was as follows:(KEY(schizophrenia) OR TITLE(schizophrenia))
AND PUBYEAR > 1989 AND PUBYEAR < 2020 and(KEY(schizo­
phrenia) OR TITLE(schizophrenia)) AND PUBYEAR > 1989 AND
PUBYEAR < 2020 AND (LIMIT-TO (AFFILCOUNTRY,"India"))
In the above search stategy, the keyword for search was “Schizo­
phrenia” and it was searched in two database tags, namely “keyword
tag” and “Article Title tag” limiting period ‘1990− 2019’ in “date range
tag”. The first search strategy (shown below) yielded 137,376 global
records. The first search strategy was further refined by country to
identify top 10 most productive countries (one by one including India)
on schizophrenia research. The second search strategy focusing on In­
dia’s output on schizophrenia (shown below) yielded 2807 records. Of
these 2807 records, 4 records were removed as they were not relevant.
Thus 2803 Indian records were further analyzed with the additional
provisions in Scopus database. Citations to publications were counted
from date of their publication till 20 January 2020. The study considered
all types of documents. The study used both raw (number of papers,
number of international collaborative papers, number of citations
recorded) and relative bibliometric indicators such as relative activity
index and relative citation index. The Relative Activity Index was
calculated by dividing an institutional share of papers within a period by
the national share of that particular field.Another indicator used here
was relative citation index, which is the ratio between the average
number of citations received by an institution or author to the the
country’s average of citations over the same time period [Gupta and
Bala, 2013]. Instead of fractural counting method in author and insti­
tutional productivity, we used a complete counting method (wherein
every contributing author or organization covered in multiple author­
ship papers was fully counted and used). All authors or organizations of
multi-authored papers have received equal credit in data counting and
analysis. Such a strategy of productivity count some time creates an
illusion, but normally it is followed in all major bibliometric studies
(Sharma et al., 2018).
Details of the citations per paper were extracted as per the SCOPUS
search engine. Details of the funding agencies were obtained from
published papers and information obtained using the SCOPUS search
engine.
3. Analysis and results
3.1. Publication output and growth
As seen from the Scopus database, the global research pursuits in the
domain of Schizophrenia accumulated a total of 137,376 publications
during the 30-year period 1990− 2019. India’s research output in the
subject during the period was limited to just 2803 publications, ac­
counting for only 2.04 % share to the global output. India ranked 13th
most productive country in the world in the subject (Tables 1, 2,
Figs. 1,2).
More than 100 countries across the world have participated in
schizophrenia research. The top 15 countries contributed a 96.26 %
global share. The United States is the largest producer of scientific
publications on schizophrenia, with a 33.81 % share to world scientific
output, followed by United Kingdom (12.87 %), and Germany (8.26 %).
The 13 other top countries contributed between 1.74 % and 5.63 %.
India ranked as the 13th most productive country in the world with a
2.04 % global share (Table 2, Fig. 2).
India’s scientific publications global share increased from 0.72 %
during 1990− 2004 to 2.66 % during 2005− 2019. India’s annual num­
ber of publications increased from 15 in the year 1990 to 245 in the year
2019, registering 14.21 % average growth, much higher than the global
publication growth of 4.55 % during 1990− 2019. India’s 15-years cu­
mulative publications increased from 319 during 1990− 2004 to 2484
during 2005− 2019, registering 678.68 % absolute growth compared to
111.79 % growth in global publications.India’s citation impact from
total publications on schizophrenia research averaged to 13.37 citations
per paper (CPP) during 1990− 2019, which decreased from 25.37 CPP
during 1990− 2004 to 11.83 CPP during 2005− 2019. This decrease is
not actual, as the publications in later years (2005− 2019) did not have
enough time to accumulate citations. The 97.79 % of the research ma­
terials covered in this study appeared in journals in the form of original/
research articles, reviews, letters, editorials, notes and short surveys)
and the rest 2.21 % in the form of book chapters, conference pro­
ceedings, and undefined categories.
About one-fourth (22.8 %) of India’s domestic publications (639) on
schizophrenia also had authors/institutions affiliated in foreign coun­
tries (involved in international collaboration) during 1990− 2019.
Collaboration allows countries to be part of partnerships led by authors
abroad, as implied by the identity of the corresponding author across
documents.The share of international collaborative publications (ICP)
marginally decreased from 22.88 % during 1990− 2004 to 22.79 %
during 2005− 2019 (Table 1). These 639 ICP have received 15,780 ci­
tations, averaging to 24.69 citations per paper during 1990− 2019.
S. Grover et al.

Table 1 Few foreign organizations played a significant role in India’s ICP.

Schizophrenia Research: India Vs World Publications Output and Citations Among these organizations, the largest number of collaborative papers
during 1990-2019. (n = 56) had collaboration with authors from Universitiy of Pittsburgh,
Publication World India United States, followed by King’s College, London, United Kingdom;
Period Harvard Medical School, United States (n = 39 papers), University of
TP TP TC CPP TP ICP ICP Melbourne, Australia (n = 32 papers); London School of Hygiene &
(%) (%)
Public Health, United Kingdom and Shanghai Mental Health Research
1990 1912 15 194 12.93 0.78 2 13.33 Center, China (31 papers each), etc.
1991 1873 17 151 8.88 0.91 2 11.76
365 (13.02 % share) out of 2803 India’s schizophrenia research
1992 2151 9 237 26.33 0.42 0 0.00
1993 2123 15 121 8.07 0.71 0 0.00 publications had received funding support from 146 Indian and foreign
1994 2432 13 226 17.38 0.53 2 15.38 funding agencies during 1990− 2019.The 365 funded papers have
1995 2390 9 200 22.22 0.38 3 33.33 received 8207 citations, averaging to 22.48 citations per paper. The
1996 2634 12 432 36.00 0.46 7 58.33 number of funded papers increased from 16 during 1990− 2004 to 349
1997 2782 13 298 22.92 0.47 2 15.38
1998 3020 21 886 42.19 0.70 7 33.33
during 2005− 2019. Among the Indian funding agencies, the largest
1999 3324 16 229 14.31 0.48 2 12.50 number of papers (n = 59) came from funding support of Department of
2000 3395 28 574 20.50 0.82 2 7.14 Biotechnology (DBT), West Bengal, Indian Council of Medical Research
2001 3456 30 901 30.03 0.87 9 30.00 (n = 57 papers), The Wellcome Trust-DBT India Alliance (n = 43 pa­
2002 3637 31 710 22.90 0.85 3 9.68
pers), Department of Science and Technology, Kerala (n = 41 papers),
2003 4310 51 1945 38.14 1.18 17 33.33
2004 4622 39 988 25.33 0.84 15 38.46 University Grant Commission (n = 42 papers), Department of Biotech­
2005 4871 46 1074 23.35 0.94 16 34.78 nology (DBT), India (n = 17 papers), etc.
2006 5302 80 1653 20.66 1.51 31 38.75 On classifying India’s schizophrenia research output by population
2007 5814 76 1935 25.46 1.31 22 28.95 age groups, it was found that Adults constitute the largest focus of
2008 5946 94 1899 20.20 1.58 26 27.66
research (with 66 % share), followed by Adolescents (11.77 %), Aged
2009 5862 123 1772 14.41 2.10 36 29.27
2010 6062 148 4696 31.73 2.44 41 27.70 (6.53 %) and Children’s (3.75 %) during 1990− 2019. The publication
2011 6308 149 4478 30.05 2.36 37 24.83 share has decreased in all population age groups: Adults (from 88.06%
2012 6548 189 1793 9.49 2.89 32 16.93 to 64.45%), Adolescents (from 16.93 % to 11.11 %), Aged (from 6.58 %
2013 6962 215 2797 13.01 3.09 47 21.86
to 6.52 %) and Children’s (from 4.39 % to 3.66 %) during 1990− 2004 to
2014 6704 202 2306 11.42 3.01 43 21.29
2015 6715 229 1753 7.66 3.41 39 17.03 2005− 2019.
2016 6689 219 1316 6.01 3.27 47 21.46
2017 6268 227 982 4.33 3.62 45 19.82 3.2. Top 15 Indian Organizations involved in schizophrenia research
2018 6616 242 609 2.52 3.66 45 18.60
2019 6648 245 311 1.27 3.69 59 24.08
A total of 475 organizations contributed to schizophrenia research in
1990− 2004 44,061 319 8092 25.37 0.72 73 22.88
2005− 2019 93,315 2484 29,374 11.83 2.66 566 22.79 India. However, there are pockets of excellence in research confined
1990− 2019 137,376 2803 37,466 13.37 2.04 639 22.80 mainly to select few organizations. For instance, just 6 organizations
alone published 51–100 papers each, 4 organizations published
TP-Total papers; TC-Total citations; CPP-Citations per paper; ICP-International
collaborative papers. 101–274 papers each and 1 produced 671 publications during the year
1990− 2019 Table 3.
An analysis of top 15 most productive organizations in India revealed
United States, accounted for disproportionate share and hold the largest
that their productivity varied from 13 to 671 publications per organi­
publication share (50.08 %) among ICPs, followed by United Kingdom
zation. These institutes accounted for 76.42 % share (n = 2142) of total
(26.6 %), Australia (18.94 %), Canada (10.8 %), Japan (8.14 %), China
Indian research output and 76.71 % share (n = 28,704) of total citations
(7.98 %), Switzeland (7.36 %), Malaysia (6.89 %), Singapore (6.57 %),
during 1990− 2019. More scientometric details of top 15 most produc­
Germany (6.10 %), etc. The ICP share increased in 8 countries from 2.25
tive organizationsare presented in Table 3.
% to 9.10 %, as against decrease in 2 countries, namely United Kingdom
and United States (from 2.23 % to 7.08 %) from 1990− 2004 to
2005− 2019.

Table 2
The top 15 most productive countries in Schizophrenia Research during 1990-2019.
Number of Papers Share of Papers
S.No Name of the Country
1990− 2004 2005− 2019 1990− 2019 1990− 2004 2005− 2019 1990− 2019

1 USA 15,125 31,326 46,451 34.33 33.57 33.81

2 U.K. 5521 12,158 17,679 12.53 13.03 12.87
3 Germany 3757 7589 11,346 8.53 8.13 8.26
4 Canada 1988 5749 7737 4.51 6.16 5.63
5 Australia 1446 5756 7202 3.28 6.17 5.24
6 Japan 1985 4470 6455 4.51 4.79 4.70
7 France 1736 3690 5426 3.94 3.95 3.95
8 Italy 1243 4043 5286 2.82 4.33 3.85
9 China 470 4567 5037 1.07 4.89 3.67
10 Spain 981 3582 4563 2.23 3.84 3.32
11 Netherlands 865 3189 4054 1.96 3.42 2.95
12 Swizerland 794 2470 3264 1.80 2.65 2.38
13 India 319 2484 2803 0.72 2.66 2.04
14 Sweden 853 1700 2553 1.94 1.82 1.86
15 Israel 909 1479 2388 2.06 1.58 1.74
Total of top 15 countries 37,992 94,252 132,244 86.23 101.00 96.26
Total of world 44,061 93,315 137,376
S. Grover et al.

Fig. 1. Schizophrenia Research Growth - India Vs World 1990-2019.

Fig. 2. Schizopherania Research - Global Publications Share 1999-2019.

3.3. Research collaboration linkages among top 15 Indian organizations
The top 4 organizations registering highest institutional collabora­
tion linkages were: NIHMANS – Bangalore, University of Delhi, DRMH-
New Delhi and AIIMS-New Delhi (67, 55, 49 and 34 with 6–12 organi­
zations). In contrast, the organizations registering the least
collaboration linkages were: Panjab University, Chandigarh, CMC-
Vellore, JIPMER-Pondicherry and G.B.Pant Hospital, Delhi (2, 5, 8 and
9linakges with 1–4 organizations). On individual to individual basis the
largest number of collaborative linkages (17) are between NIMHANS-
Bangalore and IGIB-Delhi, followed by CIP-Ranchi and KMC-Manipal
(14 linkages), NIHMANS-Banglaore – CIP-Ranchi (12 linkages),

Table 3
Top Indian 15 Most Productive in Schizophrenia Research during 1990-2019.
S.No Name of the Organization TP TC CPP HI ICP ICP (%) RCI

1 National Institute of Mental Health & Neurosciences (NIMHANS), Bangalore 671 8625 12.85 44 146 21.76 0.96
2 Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education & Research (PGIMER), Chandiagrh 271 3039 11.21 30 46 16.97 0.84
3 Central Institute of Psychiatry (CIP), Ranchi 136 1331 9.79 20 9 6.62 0.73
4 All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi 132 1670 12.65 22 20 15.15 0.95
5 Schizophrenia Research Foundation (SRF), Chennai 108 3365 31.16 31 56 51.85 2.33
6 Dr. Ram ManoharLohia Hospital (DRM), New Delhi 93 1335 14.35 22 62 66.67 1.07
7 Christian Medical College (CMC), Vellore 85 1478 17.39 22 30 35.29 1.3
8 King George’s Medical University (KGMU), Lucknow 85 742 8.73 16 31 36.47 0.65
9 Kasturba Medical College (KMC), Manipal 66 277 4.2 8 3 4.55 0.31
10 University of Delhi 58 1056 18.21 21 33 56.9 1.36
11 Panjab University, Chandigarh 31 589 19 14 6 19.35 1.42
12 Institute of Genome & Integrated Biology (IGIB), Delhi 29 606 20.9 17 3 10.34 1.56
13 Banaras Hindu University (BHU), Varanasi 24 701 29.21 11 3 12.5 2.18
14 Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), New Delhi 17 481 28.29 10 9 52.94 2.12
15 Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore 15 1159 77.27 8 5 33.33 5.78

*TP-Total publications; TC -Total citations; CPP-Citations per paper; ICP-International collaborative papers;RCI-Relative citation index.
S. Grover et al.

University of Delhi - IGIB-Delhi (9 linkages) (Table 4). 3.7. Highly- cited papers

3.4. Top 15 most productive authors on schizophrenia research from
India
A total 923 authors participated in schizophrenia Research in India.
The bulk of the research output by authors was widely scattered, and
distributed across low productivity authors. The pockets of excellence
are confined and limited to a few select authors. For instance, 10 authors
published 51–100 papers each and 4 authors published 108–180 papers
each during 1990− 2019. The top 15 most productive authors contrib­
uted 61.4 % share (n = 1721) publications, and 63.74 % (23,879) of the
citations share during 1990− 2019 [Table 5].
3.5. Network collaboration linkages among top 15 authors
The top 5 authors registering highest collaboration linkages were: G.
Venkatasubramanian, B.N. Gangadhar, S. Grover, A.Avasthi and J.
Thirthalli (228, 175, 103 and 88 linkages with 4–7 authors). On indi­
vidual to individual basis the largest number of collaborative linkages
(79) were between B N Gangadhar and G. Venkatasubramanian, fol­
lowed by B N Gangadhar and J Thirthallii (64 linkages), G. Ven­
katasubramanian and V. Shivakumar (56 linkages), S. Grover and A.
Avasthi (55 linkages), S.N. Deshpande and T. Bhatia (48 linakges), S.
Grover and S. Chakrabarti (44 linakges), G. Venkatasubramanian and J.
C. Narayanaswamy (43 linkages) (Table 6). Most of the strong linkages
were between authors from the same institute. The collaborative link­
ages among authors across institutions were very weak.
3.6. Medium of research communication
Of the total India’s publications (2803) on schizophrenia, 97.79 %
(2746) appeared in 780 journals, with skewed distribution. For example,
27 journals published 11–20 papers each, 12 published 21–50 papers
each, 3 each published 51–100 papers and 101–242 each during
1990− 2019 whereas 699 journals published 1–5 papers each, and 36
published 6–10 papers each. The top 16 journals which published
10–242 papers on schizophrenia from India and theses together
accounted for 49.12 % (1347) share of total India’s schizophrenia
research output that appeared in journals during 1990− 2019. The top 5
journals in terms of research output were:Indian Journal of Psychiatry
(242 papers), Asian Journal of Psychiatry (214 papers), Indian Journal
of Psychological Medicine (103 papers), Schizophrenia Research (95
papers) and Psychiatry Research (55 papers). The top 5 journals in terms
of citation impact per paper were: The Lancet (97.7), Progress in Neuro
Psychopharmacology & Biological Psychiatry (50.0), Schizophrenia
Bulletin (44.67), International Journal of Social Psychiatry (24.77) and
British Journal of Psychiatry (23.98) (Table 7).
Of the 2803 India’s publications on schizophrenia research during
1990− 2019, only 32 (1.14 % share) publications received 102–2042
citations per paper (assumed here highly-cited) and they together
received a total of 9376 citations, since their publication, averaging to
293 citations per paper. The distribution of 32 highly-cited papers was
also skewed. Twenty four (24) papers registered citations in the range
102–190 per paper, 4 in citation range 255–423, 3 in citation range
606–987 and 1 paper received 2042 citations.
Of the 32 highly- cited papers (18 research articles, 13 reviews and 1
note), 9 had no collaboration, 27 had authors from two or more orga­
nizations per paper (1 national collaborative and 22 international
collaborative papers).
The 32 highly- cited papers involve 67 Indian authors and 36 Indian
organizations. Among 32 highly-cited papers, the largest number of
papers (5 each) is contributed by NIHMANS-Bangalore, Schizophrenia
Research Foundation-Chennai (4 papers), CMC-Vellore, National
Chemical Laboratory, Pune and Bharati Vidyapeeth University Medical
College (3 papers each), Bharati Vidyapeeth University, Pune, Kripa­
mayee Research Center, Kripamayee Institute for Mental Health, Miraj;
National Center for Cell Science, Pune;Sangath Centre, Goa and
Voluntary Health Services- Multi-Specialty Hospital, Research Institute;
Institute of Neurological Sciences, Chennai, India (2 papers each) and
other organizations (1 paper each).
The 32 highly-cited papers were published in 24 journals, 3 papers in
World Psychiatry, 2 papers each in The Lancet, British Journal of Psychi­
atry, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Psychiatry Research,
Schizophrenia Bulletin and Schizophrenia Research and 1 paper each in 17
other journals.
4. Discussion
This is the second bibiliometric study looking at the schizophrenia
research from India. Compared to the previous study (Gupta and Bala,
2013), this study, covers the larger period of publication output and
hence provides much wider information about the schizophrenia
research in India. This study shows that only 2.04 % of the schizophrenia
research occurring across the globe arises from India, and India is ranked
13th in the world output. When we compare this research output with
some of the developed countries like United States, which contributes to
33.8 % of the world schizophrenia research output, the Indian contri­
bution appears to be miniscule. However, when one goes through the list
of the top 15 countries contributing to schizophrenia research, it is
evident that India is possibly the only low and middle income country
(LAMIC) in the list. However, considering the share of Indian population
in world population, it can be said that there is need to increase the
research output for schizophrenia from India. Some of the reasons for

Table 4
Collaborative Linkages among Top 15 Organizations in Schizophrenia Research during 1990-2019.
S.No Name of Organization Collaborative Linkages with other Organization Total Collaborative Linkages

1 NIMHANS - Bangalore 2(4), 3(3), 4(12), 5(6), 6(1), 7(5), 9(1), 10(9), 11(5), 12(2), 14(17), 15(2) 67(12)
2 PGIMER –Chandiagrh 1(4), 3(5), 5(3), 6(3), 7(8), 8(2), 13(2) 27(7)
3 AIIMS - New Delhi 1(3), 2(5), 6(6), 7(1), 10(4), 11(4), 12(5), 14(3), 15(3) 34(9)
4 CIP - Ranchi 1(12), 7(2), 9(14), 28(3)
5 SRF - Chennai 1(6), 2(3), 7(3) 12(3)
6 DRMH- New Delhi 1(1), 2(3),3(6), 7(3), 10(31), 11(2), 15(3) 49(7)
7 KGMU –Lucknow 1(5), 2(8), 3(1), 4(2), 5(3), 6(3), 8(1), 11(1) 24(8)
8 CMC - Vellore 2(2), 7(1),14(2) 5(3)
9 KMC –Manipal 1(7), 2(1), 4(14), 14(1) 17(4)
10 University of Delhi 1(9), 3(4), 6(31), 11(2), 14(9) 55(6)
11 IHBAS - Delhi 1(5), 3(4), 6(2), 7(1), 10(2), 14(1), 15(1) 16(6)
12 JIPMER - Pondicherry 1(2), 2(1), 3(5) 8(3)
13 Panjab University, Chandigarh 2(2) 2(1)
14 IGIB - Delhi 1(17), 3(3), 10(9), 11(1) 30(4)
15 G.B.Pant Hospital, Delhi 1(2), 3(3), 6(3), 11(1) 9(4)
S. Grover et al.

Table 5
Top 15 Most Productive Indian Authors in Schizophrenia Research during 1990-2019.
S.No Name of the Author Affiliation of the Author TP TC CPP HI ICP ICP (%) RCI

1 G. Venkatasubramanian NIMHANS – Bangalore 180 2208 12.27 26 13 7.22 0.92

2 B.N. Gangadhar NIMHANS – Bangalore 162 2809 17.34 31 44 27.16 1.3
3 S. Grover PGIMER – Chandigarh 125 1209 9.67 20 14 11.2 0.72
4 J. Thirthalli NIMHANS – Bangalore 108 1412 13.07 20 24 22.22 0.98
5 C. Andrade NIMHANS – Bangalore 80 1018 12.73 18 13 16.25 0.95
6 A. Avasthi PGIMER – Chandigarh 68 793 11.66 16 12 17.65 0.87
7 R.Thara SRF – Chennai 68 2167 31.87 28 41 60.29 2.38
8 S.N. Deshpande DRMLH–PGI - New Delhi 67 1017 15.18 20 53 79.1 1.14
9 V. Shivakumar NIMHANS – Bangalore 58 598 10.31 14 12 20.69 0.77
10 S. Chakrabarti PGIMER – Chandigarh 58 931 16.05 19 0 0 1.2
11 S. Jain NIMHANS – Bangalore 53 758 14.3 18 10 18.87 1.07
12 P. Kulhara PGIMER – Chandigarh 49 1038 21.18 20 1 2.04 1.58
13 K.S. Jacob CMC – Vellore 37 867 23.43 15 14 37.84 1.75
14 M.S. Keshavan NIMHANS – Bangalore 34 813 23.91 17 29 85.29 1.79
15 B.K. Thelma University of Delhi 31 744 24 18 29 93.55 1.8

*TP-Total publications; TC -Total citations; CPP-Citations per paper; ICP-International collaborative papers; HI- H-Index; RCI-Relative citation index.

Table 6
Collaborative Linkages among Top 15 Authors in India’s Research on Schizophrenia Research during 1990-2019.
.No Name of Authors Affiliation of Author Collaborative Linkages with other Authors Total Collaborative Linkages

1 B.N. Gangadhar NIMHANS – Bangalore 3(64), 4(79), 5(3), 9(16), 13(1), 14(23), 15(9) 175(7)
2 S. Grover PGIMER - Chandigarh 3(2), 6(55), 8(2), 11(44) 103(4)
3 J. Thirthalli NIMHANS - Bangalore 1(64), 2(2), 4(11), 5(2), 13(3),14(2), 15(2) 86(7)
4 G. Venkatasubramanian NIMHANS - Bangalore 1(79), 3(11), 9(56), 13(2), 14(37), 15(43) 228(6)
5 C. Andrade NIMHANS - Bangalore 1(3), 3(2) 5(2)
6 A. Avasthi PGIMER - Bangalore 2(55), 11(30), 7(1), 8(2) 88(4)
7 S.N. Deshpande DRMLH – New Delhi 6(1), 11(1), 12(48) 50(3)
8 R.Thara SRF – Chennai 2(2), 6(2), 11(2) 6(3)
9 V. Shivakumar NIMHANS - Bangalore 1(16), 4(56), 14(4), 15(1) 77(4)
10 S.K. Praharaj$ KMC - Manipal – –
11 S. Chakrabarti PGIMER - Chandigarh 2(44), 6(30), 7(1), 8(2), 12(2) 79(5)
12 T. Bhatia DRMLH – New Delhi 7(48), 11(2) 50(2)
13 S. Jain NIMHANS - Bangalore 1(1), 3(3), 4(2), 14(1), 15(1) 8(5)
14 N.P. Rao NIMHANS – Bangalore 1(23), 3(2), 4(37), 9(4), 13(1) 65(5)
15 J.C. Narayanaswamy NIMHANS - Bangalore 1(9), 3(2), 4(43), 9(1), 13(1) 56(5)

$- This author did not have any collaboration with any of the other listed authors in the table.

Table 7
Top 16 Most Productive Journals which reported Schizophrenia Research in India, 1990-2019.
S.No Name of the Journal Number of Papers (TP) TC CPP

1990− 2004 2005− 2019 1990− 2019 1990− 2019

1 Indian Journal of Psychiatry# 0 242 242 1699 7.02

2 Asian Journal of Psychiatry 0 214 214 1013 4.73
3 Indian Journal of Psychological Medicine## 0 103 103 468 4.54
4 Schizophrenia Research 15 80 95 2157 22.71
5 Psychiatry Research 7 48 55 1002 18.22
6 Journal of Neuropsychiatry & Clinical Neurosciences 0 52 52 386 7.42
7 British Journal of Psychiatry 20 27 47 1127 23.98
8 Journal of ECT 3 41 44 691 15.70
9 ActaPsychiatricaScandinavica 17 24 41 1219 29.73
10 Indian Journal of Medical Research 2 38 40 348 8.70
11 International Journal of Social Psychiatry 12 19 31 768 24.77
12 Schizophrenia Bulletin 3 18 21 938 44.67
13 International Review of Psychiatry 2 19 21 337 16.05
14 Progress in Neuro Psychopharmacology & Biological Psychiatry 2 16 18 900 50.0
15 Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 0 14 14 300 21.43
16 The Lancet 1 9 10 977 97.7

Note: #Indian Journal of Psychiatry is listed in the scopus since 2009 and ## Indian Journal of Psychological Medicine is listed in the scopus since 2011.

low research output compared to the developed countries could be poor
research infrastructure, poor inter-sectorial collaborations, poor funding
and lack of dedicated research staff. Most of the research from India is
coming from the clinicians, who are also involved in research. Accord­
ingly, there is a need to change the research culture in the country to
improve the research output, especially on schizophrenia, which is a
devastating illness for both patients and the family members.
However, one good aspect, which emerges from this study, is that,
when one compares India’s global publication share during 1990− 04
and 2005− 19, India’s global share has increased significantly from 0.72
% to 2.66 % in schizophrenia research. This indicates about 3.5–4 times
increase in the global output on schizophrenia research from India. The
annual publications and fifteen-year cumulative publications from India
registered 14.21 % and 678.68 % growth respectively, which are much
S. Grover et al.
above 4.55 % and 111.79 % growth of global output during 1990− 2019.
This is a healthy sign and possibly shows that in recent times, with the
improvement of infrastructure in some of the centres and availability of
mentors who have been involved in schizophrenia research for decades,
the research output from India on schizophrenia is increasing.
Another important observation from this study is the fact that 76.42
% research on schizophrenia in India has come from 30 insitutes, with 6
institutes contributing to about 50 % of the research on schizophrenia
from India, and other institutes contributing to only less than one-fourth
of the total publications. This possibly suggests that there is a need to
expand the base of schizophrenia research in the country and need to
develop and promote collaboration between different institutes through
sponsored research funding. The gross disparity in India could be lack of
research culture in majority of the institutes, lack of training in research
methodology, research not given due importance in the promotion and
other career advancements, besides the lack of availability of the
infrastucture. All these factors need to be addressed although these may
not be related to schizophrenia research per se, and actually reflect on
the research output from the country in general. The government should
come with well formulated policy on mental health research and pri­
oritise the research in different sub-fields including in schizophrenia
research and also invest in scaling up of existing infrastructure so that
the research output improves in the country and problems of people
suffering from schizophrenia are addressed.
In terms of collaborative research, the present study shows that only
less than one-fourth (22.8 %) of the research output involved interna­
tional collaboration with no significant change in this proportion over
the last 3 decades. There is a need to improve the international collab­
orations with partner countries and organizations actively involved in
research in this area, so as to improve the technology transfer and
learning from each other. In addition, stronger international collabora­
tions can also help in solving some of the critical issues related to
schizophrenia, which have still not been answered due to small sample
size in isolated studies arising from one or few centres. Further, it is
evident that, there is little inter-institutional collaboration between the
researchers from India. There is dearth of multicentric studies on
schizophrenia from India. Due to this, although we have been able to
come up with some findings from one or few centres, it is often difficult
to replicate the same in other parts of the country, due to either varia­
tions in the presentation or other related issues.
The number of citation for per paper (CPP) from India averaged to
13.37 during 1990− 2019. Only 32 India’s publications on schizo­
phrenia research during 1990− 19 received more than 100 citations,
with these 32 papers accounting for a total of 9376 citations. These
finding suggests that research from India too gets cited reasonably, but
there is a need to improve the citation.
In the present study, we attempted to evaluate the data of the top 15
authors and the top 15 institutions contributing to the schizophrenia
research. It is important to note that, many of these top 15 authors are
co-authors and hence, the findings must be considered as duplication of
data, while evaluating the information about the indivudal author.
The present study has certain limitations, which must be kept in
mind before interpreting the findings. First, the study was based on
scopus search engine. Hence, the research published in journals/re­
sources not listed in scopus has been left out. Second, the citation scores
of scopus are in general more conservative, when compared to some­
thing like google scholar. This could have led to conservative estimates
of number of citations. Third, the searches were limited to the key word
“schizophrenia” and hence it is possible that some of the schizophrenia
research publishes with key word, such as psychosis, could have been
left out. Fourth, the number of articles attributed to particular institutes
and researchers does not mean the original research articles. These
actually reflect all type of articles, including original research, reviews,
view point, editorials, case reports, letter to the editors, etc. Hence, total
number of articles not necessarily reflects the original research con­
ducted by the various researchers. Further, it is important to note that
Indian Journal of Psychiatry and Indian Journal of Psychological Med­
icine have been listed in scopus from 2009 and 2011 respectively.
Hence, we could not include publications in these journals during the
period of 1990–2008/2010. Accordingly, the publications of the authors
who published in these journals during this time frame have not been
included and this remains as a limitation of this paper. As Scopus
database is updated on a regular basis, and we carried out an online
evaluation, we did not save the list of the publications included in the
analysis.
To conclude, this study shows that, only 2.04 % of the schizophrenia
research occurring across the globe arises from India and India is ranked
13th in the world share of schizophrenia research. The schizophrenia
research output during the period of 2005− 2019 increased to 2.66 % of
the world’s total publications on schizophrenia compared to 0.72 % of
the world publications, during the year 1990− 2004. About three-fourth
(76.42 %) of research on schizophrenia, has come from 30 institutes in
the country and other institutes contributing to only less than one-fourth
of the publications on schizophrenia. Six institutes have contributed to
nearly half of the research on schizophrenia from India. Only about one-
fourth (22.8 %) of the research output from India involved international
collaboration with no significant change in this proportion over the last
3 decades. These findings suggest that over the years, researchers across
the country have shown keen interest in schizophrenia research. How­
ever, schizophrenia research is limited to researchers in few centres
only. Further, India contributes to only a very small proportion of world
research output on schizophrenia. These findings suggest that there is a
need to improve research in the area of schizophrenia. The schizo­
phrenia research in the country requires carrying out multicentric
studies, improving the research skills of clinicians working in various
teaching institutions and also in other sectors, designing studies which
can have more translation value, which can be used to improve the
outcome of schizophrenia. All this will require significant funding. The
funding agencies need to be made aware of the same. There is a need to
develop research policy for the country at the level of the policy makers,
to improve the infrastructure and funding. Further, policy should
encourage research which has translation value (immediate, interme­
diate and longterm) for patients with schizophrenia.
Funding
None.
Declaration of Competing Interest
None.
Acknowledgement
None.
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