Analysis of Spanish Scientific Publications on Drug Dependence during the period in the European Union Context Elena Guardiola (1, 2), Xavier Sánchez-Carbonell (2), Anna Belles (2), Marta Beranuy (2) (1) Medical Information and Documentation Department. Q. F. Bayer. Pau Claris, Barcelona - Spain (2) FPCEE Blanquerna. Universitat Ramon Llull. Císter, Barcelona - Spain Introduction Methods The Spanish publications in the field of drug dependence and drug abuse indexed in PsycINFO published form 1976 to 2000 were retrieved and analysed (evolution through years, authors, number of authors, journals, topics and language of publication) and then compared with data from the rest of EU countries (14 countries). A descriptive statistical analysis was performed and graphical displays were prepared. Results Conclusions Drug dependence is a big problem in the European Union (EU). Research on drug dependence has increased in the last decades in Spain. A method to evaluate scientific productivity in a specific field consists on the analysis of publications indexed in bibliographic databases. Main goal of this study was to evaluate Spanish scientific publications on drug dependence during 25 years and to compare them with publications in the EU in the same period. A total of 4,825 articles were retrieved; 501 (10,4%) from Spain and 4,324 from other EU countries. Spanish articles increased from 15 (4,8%) in to 192 (12,4%) in This means that Spain scientific production in this area multiplied by 12,8 while the EU by 4,6. Only two countries (UK and Germany) published more articles than Spain (Table 1, Figure 1, 2). Main language in EU publications was English (n=3,794); publications in Spanish increased dramatically in the last years (to n=329) (Table 2); authors that published in Spanish were mainly from Spain. Thirty journals published 25 or more articles from EU; 4 of them are published in Spain: Actas Lusoespañolas de Neurología, Psiquiatría y Ciencias Afines (that published 50 articles), Adicciones (49), Psiquis: Revista de Psiquiatría, Psicología y Psicosomática (36) and Anales de Psiquiatría (25) (Table 3). Authors that published in Spanish journals were mainly from Spain. Spanish articles were published mainly in Spanish- and English-language journals. Only one Spanish author was among the 25 authors who published more than 20 articles (18 were from UK, 3 from Sweden, 2 from Germany, 1 from Finland and 1 from Spain). · PsycINFO is a useful database to compare scientific productivity between countries as it includes author addresses in all records · Scientific interest in drug dependence has grown in the EU during the 25 years studied. These results confirm the tendency observed in other studies and show that Spanish research on drug dependence has increased; this increase is bigger than the increase observed in the EU · Spain is among EU countries with a greater number of publications on drug dependence · Language of publication was Spanish in many publications from Spain, while EU countries published mainly in English · Spanish journals have published a lot of EU articles · At least four Spanish journals have to be considered in health libraries dealing with drug dependence: Actas Lusoespañolas de Neurología, Psiquiatría y Ciencias Afines, Adicciones, Psiquis: Revista de Psiquiatría, Psicología y Psicosomática and Anales de Psiquiatría Guardiola E, Sánchez-Carbonell X, Belles A, Beranuy M. Analysis of Spanish scientific publications on drug dependence during the period in the European Union context. 9 th European Conference of Medical and Health Libraries. Santander, September 20 t – 25, 2004 Table 1. Articles on drug dependence from the EU indexed in PsycINFO (1976 – 2000) Country nnnnn n (%) Austria (1.5) Belgium (1.2) Denmark (1.7) Finland (4.3) France (5.9) Germany (10.5) G. Britain (38.6) Greece (0.7) Ireland (1.3) Italy (7.2) Luxembourg Netherlands (7.2) Portugal (0.3) Spain (10.4) Sweden (9.2) Total ,0931,2501,5434,825 Table 3. Journals that published 40 or more articles. Journaln Addiction 760 Alcohol and Alcoholism 293 Drug and Alcohol Dependence 220 British Journal of Psychiatry 148 Substance Use and Misuse 142 Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research 133 Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica 129 Addiction Research 102 Tijdschrift voor Alcohol, Drugs en andere Psychotrope Stoffen 99 Journal of Studies on Alcohol 78 Addictive Behaviors 70 Drugs: Education, Prevention and Policy 63 Psychopharmacology 56 Psychologie Médicale 52 Actas Luso Españolas de Neurología, … 50 Adicciones 49 Journal of Drug Issues 44 Psychological Reports 41 Table 2. Language of publication of the 4,825 articles on drug dependence from the EU indexed in PsycINFO ( ) grouped by 5-year periods. Language n (%) n (%) n (%) n (%) n (%) Total n (%) Danish0 (0)5 (0.8)2 (0.2)1 (0.1) 9 (0.2) Dutch2 (0.6)38 (6.1)56 (5.1)29 (2.3)5 (0.3)130 (2.7) English226 (72.4)403 (64.3)789 (72.2)1,059 (84.7)1,317 (85.4)3,794 (78.6) Finnish0 (0)1 (0,2)0 (0)3 (0.2)0 (0)4 (0.1) French20 (6.4)49 (7.8)88 (8.1)18 (1.4)31 (2.0)219 (4.5) Greek0 (0) 3 (0.2)1 (0.1)4 (0.1) German36 (11.5)47 (7.5)47 (4.3)31 (2.5)47 (3.0)208 (4.3) Italian14 (4.5)26 (4.1)42 (3.8)19 (1.5)21 (1.4)122 (2.5) Portuguese0 (0)1 (0.2)7 (0.6)0 (0) 8 (0.2) Spanish14 (4.5)51 (8.1)61 (5.6)84 (6.7)119 (7.7)329 (6.8) Swedish0 (0)6 (1.0)1 (0.1)2 (0.2)0 (0)9 (0.2) Others0 (0) 1 (0.1) 2 (0) Total ,0931,2501,5434,825