With this issue the International Journal of Methods in Psychiatric Research welcomes a new publisher, Colin Whurr. It also welcomes a new editor-in-chief, Hans-Ulrich Wittchen, and a new associate editor for North America, Philip Lavori, who joins associate editor Lee Robins, together with several new members of the advisory board. These changes signal a new look for the journal, coverage of new topics such as psychopharmacology and pharmacoepidemiology, and also new alliances.
We are particularly happy to announce the journal's new, close collaboration with the European Committee for Standardization of Clinical Trials with Psychotropics (ECST) and with the International Consortium of Psychiatric Epidemiology (ICPE), and its continued linkage to the World Health Organization's Division of Mental Health and Prevention of Substance Abuse. We hope that these links will ultimately make the International Journal of Methods in Psychiatric Research a more comprehensive, informative and attractive forum for the presentation and discussion of critical methodological concerns in psychiatry and across disciplinary boundaries in mental health research.
The concepts, topics, methodologies and techniques of psychiatry as an applied multidisciplinary science change continually and rapidly. There are many different critical methodological issues and these are only dimly perceived across disciplinary boundaries. The methods used in psychiatry -and related basic and applied sciences that inform psychiatric theory and practice -are rarely fully described in published articles. The International Journal of Methods in Psychiatric Research seeks to monitor, discuss and influence critical methodological issues and developments in this field by providing a platform for rapid publication of outstanding contributions. It also intends to continue the tradition of offering sufficient space for full description of methods.